This Morgan dollar Has Me Intrigued. (I am not sure what to make of it.)

@braddick said:

@oih82w8 said:
Whizzed?

I don't believe so.

@IkesT said:
Planchet striations.

I thought that was a possibility, especially as there are no lines running through the LIBERTY on the headband...

Because the tendency is for planchet striations to get flattened out during striking of the coin, they tend to be better preserved on the higher relief parts of the coin (which correspond to the more concave areas of the die). If you look carefully, you can still see remnants of them in lower relief areas, but they are more subtle.

Below are a few areas where you can see examples of weaker striations in lower relief areas adjacent to the stronger striations in higher relief areas:

Short version. If you punch a planchet of precise diameter out of a planchet strip of precise thickness you can produce planchets of precise weight. In an attempt to make planchet strip thickness precise, the Mint would roll down planchet strip to just slightly more than what was needed and then put it on a drawing bench, which held the strip flat. The leading edge of the strip was mechanically tapered (hammered?) and fed through a rectangular "gate" in a block of steel firmly attached to one end of the bench, A clamp attached to a powered chain was attached to the tapered end and as the chain retracted the entire strip was pulled through the gate. THis gave the strip the precise thickness of the gate.

HOWEVER, if metal fragments attached themselves to the gate they could leave long, parallel scratches in the planchet strip as it went through. (These used to be called "roller marks," but rollers do not develop long and parallel RAISED lines on them which could leave such marks.) Depending on where the long parallel scratches fell under the relief on the dies, they would be more or less flattened out. The higher the relief, the less pressure on the surface of the coin.

Roger B. offers these quotes from one of his books:

Following the finishing rolls, the thin strips were cut in half lengthwise to make them easier to handle and reduce bending. A one and a half inch “pointing roll” was used to thin one end of each strip so that it would easily fit through the fixed dies of the draw bench. The strip was also coated with tallow to lubricate passage between the dies.

A drawbench had two flat, polished steel dies whose spacing was controlled by set screws. [Polished cylindrical dies were also used.] The thin end of a strip was fed through the dies and attached to the gripping jaws of the draw bench carriage. As the carriage was pulled along the bench, it pulled the strip through the fixed dies and the metal was pressed to the correct final thickness for cutting coin blanks. Sample blanks were cut from each end of the strip to make sure the thickness was correct. The ends of each strip were cut off to prevent accidental production of thin blanks from the tapered ends. The sides were also trimmed to remove areas of irregular thickness. (By the early 1920s, it had been found that if up to twenty-four passes through the breakdown rollers and ten through the finishing rollers were made, the strips were of better quality. Cracks and ripples were minimized and the draw bench often had little effect on the strips. This took more time in the rolling mill but resulted in less waste and an overall improvement in efficiency.)
[Source: From Mine to Mint, p50.]

A last problem was the introduction of very fine scratches in the strip surface, during either final rolling or use of the drawbench, [depending on severity]. Drawbench marks could result from one of the rotating polished dies becoming stuck, or contamination of the strip lubricants. Any marks produced by debris on the rolls or drawbench dies, would have been too small to affect the weight of blanks. Certain high-point lines on Morgan silver dollars can be attributed to this cause when a combination of design relief and striking pressure did not obliterate all of the fine scratches.
[Source: From Mine to Mint, p275.]