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Trouble seeing hairlines on a proof Kennedy...
Longacre
Posts: 16,717 ✭✭✭
I bought a proof Kennedy a few months ago (uncertified and cheap). I was taking a look at it tonight with a 7x loupe, trying to work on my "hairlined proof detection skills". I rotated the coin under a light, but I could still not easily see hairlines. I tried to angle the coin directly under a light so that it "lit up" when magnified, and saw some dash-like marks in the fields. I am not sure if these are hairlines or just metal flow lines. Using the techniques that I described, are hairlines fairly obvious, or are they difficult to find and it takes some experience with what to look for?
Always took candy from strangers
Didn't wanna get me no trade
Never want to be like papa
Working for the boss every night and day
--"Happy", by the Rolling Stones (1972)
Didn't wanna get me no trade
Never want to be like papa
Working for the boss every night and day
--"Happy", by the Rolling Stones (1972)
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Anyway rotate the coin under the light and you should see all hairlines. Die polish marks leave shadows. Dash like marks are more like hits. Hairlines extend longer than a dash (at least the way I think of those words) and are straight and thin.
It is obvious to me. But then I've looked at many proofs over many years. If I'm not sure if I'm looking at a hairline or die polish I might deploy the loupe as a weapon of last resort.... Sometimes I'm seeing a shadow of a scratch in the plastic holder, those are easy to distinguish because when you tilt the coin the line moves across the coin.