RWB

The example is a commonly available, mass produced item sold to confused and unwary people. These things never touched the shores of any of Palau's 340 islands and will not purchase anything. The only currency is the US dollar -- which this thing is not.

Skip the forms. No 1957 cent is worth the certification cost. These remain available by the 100-roll and mint-sealed bag lot.

Yes. There will be an article available soon that debunks the entire lie.

Hummm....His name is "LOCK34" and his profile shows public information. That's all we get on message boards.

The defect was, evidently, not noticed until some of the coins made it to HQ -- possibly in routine Special Assay samples from each delivery. This had happened previously, and was the responsibility of the production mint to catch during routine inspection. As we can readily see from a long history of cracks, cuds, and clips, employees did not get them all -- and still don't.

The director was a presidential appointee, and responsible for the quality and legal compliance of all coins. Any mint-produced defect, such as the lumps described, would reflect badly on national coinage, and the authenticity of coins.

"1964 SMS" coins are a lie, and myth and a fantasy. None were made and none exist.

Heritage has hundreds in the auction database.

Where you live, it's almost any place.

Has anyone seen a 1910-P Eagle matching this description?

Is there supposed to be some significance to a mutilated cent found in a parking lot?

The original plan was to use one design for all gold denominations and a separate one for the cent. All of this is explained and illustrated in RAC 1905-1908. TR liked the cent obverse and wanted it tested on the DE - one pattern piece known. SG convinced him to keep the striding Liberty figure on the DE and use the Cent obv, with a rather silly Native American chief's headress added, on the Eagle as ordered by TR. (TR's stint as a cattle rancher in the Dakotas might have produced a fetish for native headdresses.) Both the striding and portrait Liberty were adapted from the SG's Sherman Memorial in NYC - just with individual names/titles. At beginning of 1908 the adopted DE design was to be used for HE and QE coins. (Edge lettering was not really a problem on these smaller coins. The Philadelphia Mint was doing that on Mexican 10-peso gold pieces.)

Hmmmm...something's gotten confused. Usual procedure was to anneal planchets before striking. Every mint uses something similar today, or buys planchets pre-softened. MCMVII DE were annealed between blows to bring out the detail as quickly as possible. US Mints once had a "Whitening room" for silver and a "Cleaning room" for copper and nickel. The final step was a quick dip in weak sulfuric or nitric acid to brighten the surface just before striking. For silver coins, this resulted in a surface on newly struck coins that was higher in silver than in the bulk alloy. This made the coins look "white" rather than the slightly yellow color of 0.900 silver coin alloy. Clad coin surface alloy is ugly regardless of what is done to it.

In reality, VKurtB is incorrect. I know many astute collectors who follow my overall description. The difference between them and run-of-the-mill "VKurtB-types" is that these folks don't care about money, profit, greed (at least not in their hobbies), or the circular hype infesting coin collecting. Their holdings include accurate coin and medal grades combined with their personal preferences for other, subjective, factors.

Each time a modern imitation coin, proof, or other novelty is removed from its original packaging, you expose its surface to contamination. The effects are cumulative each time a holder is opened, and increase as unprotected time increases. The effects might not become visible for a year or more. You can be smart, and leave it in the original plastic capsule, or take your chances after spending $50.

Consistent, reliable coin grading is not difficult. (Although nearly everyone else posting message will disagree.) A "grade" is simply a combination of the amount of wear/abrasion on the coin, plus external damage such as bumps, scrapes, scratches and so forth. Both these can be determined using standards accepted long ago, or with degraded versions shown in the ANA Grading guide. (With the exception of Uncirculated coins, where these are not well defined.) It gets complicated, confusing and largely worthless, when subjective factors such as luster, strike, tarnish, "look" and other uncontrollable conditions get layered on top of, or in between largely objective criteria. Today's collectors and dealers have largely handed off grading to independent for-profit companies owned by buy-out companies, and thereby given up meaningful control over quality. It is all about the money - nothing else.

The density is missing, but other data in the Heritage catalog looks OK. (Why does PCGS not put ALL of the data on the page with a coin they certified as an off-metal strike?)

Yes, I should have been clearer. A die chip in the center of the mintmark would cause the "O" to be partially or completely filled on the coin.

This is what I was asking for information about.

You will get a deeper response if you post this on VAMworld.com message board.

I was in the left-hand lane when I passed....Had to get to the rest stop to get more smokes!

The die was over-polished during normal repair, that acc9unts for the floating leaves. The mintmark is damaged in the center so the "O" looks filled. (In future, please post photos not these awful screen grabs.)

Well, that is cheaper than Ozempic. How much did the dime lose? Were there side effects? (or front, back or top effects....can you add beans and get sound effects?) Sorry -- Last slept Sat afternoon. Jet lag can get nasty.

Mine flipped over to a future address....strange. It also changed my name to "Rod Serling."

Proportion of the population is the critical value. The second is our current definition of "collector." Third is the product mix availability.