Finally figured out the mystery of the pock-marked Kennedy

FC57Coins

I went back to the coin show this afternoon and talked with a couple of dealers and one of the graders at SEGS who happened to have a table there.

Their concensus is that the planchet was acid damaged. Looking at the piece they theorized that this piece was probably going through the pre-strike acid bath and stayed in the process too long, causing the acid to eat into the surface of the piece prior to striking. This would explain why the pock marks are uniform through out the reverse of the coin. The piece was apparently going through the conveyor between the acid and the final rinse and maybe the machinery had to be shut down for one reason or the other, and the acid stayed on this piece for a period of time before it completed it's cycle.

Thanks for everyone's input - I enjoy these learning experiences.

Frank

Here's the picture of the coin if you didn't catch it the first time (with apologies to dog97 for glare and/or shadows )

MadMarty

I have a morgan that has dimples on it. Maybe that's how...

Dog97

I don't know if I buy that or not but I can't refute it.

TheNumish

I was wondering about that. Thanks for sharing the info.

FC57Coins

I guess you'd have to see the coin Dog - it doesn't show any weakness in the design, which I would suspect would be the result of being struck through "something". The fact that the marks are through out the coin also would lead me to believe that something happened at the planchet stage which then got stamped and gave the results it did.

Frank

TheNumish

If it was the planchet why isn't the obverse grainy?

danglen

As one of my favorite graders says"I can only guess, because I wasn't there". The acid theory doesn't seem valid to me because acid would not create "bubbles", but would create "voids". Remember, the clading process has already been completed by the time the planchet material goes through the annealing process and is chemically washed, so acid would have to eat into the metal. Just my opinion, and probably not worth any more than I am being paid for it.

richbeat

I was wondering the same thing as Numish--why not the obverse?

Gilbert

I can't see any more on the current image then really rough fields, but based on the description I am curious about the conclusion, because I wasn't aware that any sort of acid was being used in the minting process of clad halves.

Could someone please enlighten me, or point me to where I can enlighten myself?