What the... A really weird Kennedy - Help! (New Picture Posted)

FC57Coins

This afternoon while hunting for some nice Mint Set Kennedy's I ran into the sample below. As you can see the obverse is perfectly fine - almost prooflike as some of these 90's issues tend to be - a very smooth obverse with hardly any marks. I turned it over and what is this??? The ENTIRE REVERSE - fields, devices, everything is covered by very small granularity. To the naked eye it looks very brilliant and mark free - under magnification you see these raised bumps all over - you can see it on the picture at the left and right of the picture - what caused this???

Frank

PS - what you see on the left hand side of the obverse photo are metal flow marks - nothing unusual on the obverse

I've put in a new picture of the revese of this half. One more thought that has come to mind - defective rollers as the planchet strips were being made?

littlewicher

Bad case of acne.

Actually, I'm not quite sure what causes that. I've seen them before like that.

misterR

My guess is an extremely worn reverse die.

FC57Coins

I've seen worn die damage, but it usually makes the letters look mushy and sometimes even almost doubled - I've only seen this on one other Kennedy - that one was limited to the obverse. And with a relatively modest mintage of about 3-4 million, I wouldn't think that worn dies would've been an issue.

Frank

FC57Coins

I want to see if someone might have an answer to this question so I'm kicking it back up to the top.

Frank

TheNumish

I aree with misterR. The die was just overused. I see that a lot on 1998 mint set halves. Not too often on 1996.

FC57Coins

OK - I'll go along with that - but what about the worn die causes the pock marks? And why would they be so uniform through out the coin - I'm not doubting you - just trying to understand.

Thanks

Frank

danarchy

sorry just looks like flow lines to me. What am I missing???

dimeadzn

To be honest, I don't have a clue. But I'll bump it back up so someone with more knowledge might see it.

Good luck!

FC57Coins

Danarchy:

Flow lines generally are flat and kinda follow in a specific direction where the metal was headed to. In this case the entire reverse is covered with these bumps and craters - the best analogy that I can come up with is, imagine that the entire surface of the obverse was boiling and cooled all of a sudden. You'd be left with tiny little pits and bubbles all over - that's what this half looks like.

Frank

DHeath

Frank,

I'll go through the junk chest today and find it, but I have an 82 half that looks almost that bad (same kind of disturbance). I always thought it was fabric stuck on one die. It almost looks like part of a lamination from a previous coin seperated and stuck on one die.

FC57Coins

Cool Don - thanks!

I thought about the coin being struck through something but the detail in the devices is actually quite good, that makes me wonder about my roller theory as well - I don't get it.

Frank

cladking

Perhaps the die was damaged on a previous strike through. Though
there shouldn't be much around that would damage the die this way.
The nature of the distortion is also disturbing, especially the concentric
lines at 7 o'clock.

FC57Coins

Sam:

Looking at the coin under magnification as we speak, the concentric lines that you refer to might be from the picture. As I look at the coin, I'm reminded of perhaps a matte proof being blasted with pebbles rathern than with fine sand. There are no contact marks whatsoever, and the granularity is completely uniform.

Frank

danglen

Hi Frank,
I have several Morgan and Peace dollars that look similar to your coin, but all of them were in a house that burned to the ground. IMHO, I think there may have been a problem on your coin during the lamination process, maybe some moisture between layers before it was rolled out. During the rolling process, the temperature of the metals gets very high, which could create the bubbles. It would also explain why the bubbles only appear on one side of the coin. Just a guess.

Russ

Send it to ACG and it will get the "PR" (Pebbled Reverse) designation.

Russ, NCNE

Dog97

I can't tell much from your pict because 1 has too much glare and the other is full of shadow but I'll go with worn die or maybe struck with an oily or greasy die.