Found this penny today. First thought was that it had been run over but the appearance and feel of it leads me to believe that's not the case. The edge is silver and has sort of a bowl going on on the reverse side of the coin. The front although scratched is perfectly flat. Also the edge is split with silver color on one side and copper penny color on the other. Any ideas?
Good question. The "how" and "why" of it are a bit of a mystery, but obviously it was ground down by someone. The "silver" color there is merely from the inner zinc core of the cent being exposed. This identifies it as a post-1982 coin. Looks to me as though someone perhaps machined it to use it as some kind of spacer, or perhaps the foot for a piece of furniture or something like that.
I call it DEFDAM - Definitely Damaged As stated.. it is a Copper Plated Zinc Cent with the inner Zinc Exposed where the copper was ground away. Welcome to CoinTalk
The obverse looks like "road rash". The reverse looks like it was intentionally ground down by human hands. Both are PMD. Chris
