Strange Turkey coin.. can anyone ID it?

kiyote

I've had this for about 30 years now, since I was a kid junk box hunting. It looks obverse like this:

Lire Coin

With the exception of a damaged planchette (Cracked?) on the top. The oddest thing is that the reverse is completely blank, never struck.
Does anyone know what it is?

WillieBoyd2

You can post a picture of your coin here, that would help.

TwoKopeiki

From NGC's World Coin Price guide.

Not sure about the uniface one that you have.

BigAlan

I have a couple of coins from"junk" box, took me 40-50 years to find out what they were. Opened a book one day and there they were.

Sapyx

It's impossible for a coin to have been "never struck" on one side. A coin is made by squeezing a piece of metal between two dies; if one of the dies is missing, there's nothing for the other die to squeeze against, so no coin can be made.

There are two possible explanations for a uniface coin:

- a specially made blank die was produced and inserted into the coin press. Since this is a deliberate and premediated act and not an "accident" or error, it typically only ever occurs on patterns and trial pieces. There's nothing in Krause indicating any uniface patterns for Turkish coins of this period being struck.

- someone has gone and obliterated the other side with some kind of grinder, sander or other tool.

The second option is almost always what has actually happened in such cases. I suspect in this case someone was trying to turn a coin into a medallion of some kind, but when the crack happened, they gave up (and presumably tried again on another coin).