Roger Posted August 27, 2011 Report Share Posted August 27, 2011 It is 110 degrees outside and I needed to do something inside to beat the heat. So I decided to pop open a Mint bag of 2011 half dollars. I pulled a few out with just the usual results then I happened onto one that had a near proof luster to it. Side by side with the other samples I immediately see that the die that struck this coin had extra treatment when being processed. I then flipped it over and noticed on the reverse that just to the left of the eagle's right wing was what appeared to be another set of feathers. As my search into the bag continued I found a few more. Well as you can imagine I began to study that "extra set of wings" under magnification and came to the following conclusion. It appears to me that this set of dies were going to be used for the Denver mint sets. I compared this coin with the few I received in this years mint set and found the luster to be comparable. My thought is while the reverse die was being polished the polisher fell asleep at the wheel and overpolished the die. The metal at the end of the feather tips being eroded from the polishing compound. Let me know what your explaination might be! Extra Feathers 1Extra feathers 2 Proof Like 1 Proof Like 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Stilson Posted August 28, 2011 Report Share Posted August 28, 2011 The extra feathers maybe die flow? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Posted August 28, 2011 Author Report Share Posted August 28, 2011 The extra feathers maybe die flow? Well I would go along with this if other areas of the coin exibited some flow issues. What I did not tell in my original post is that when compared to most of the other coins in the bag that the details are somewhat subdued. For example the arrow heads do not show as much detail or depth--another indicator of overpolish. Anyway for me the Jury is still out as to the cause. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thedeadpoint Posted August 28, 2011 Report Share Posted August 28, 2011 Looks like die flow to me! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Posted September 6, 2011 Author Report Share Posted September 6, 2011 Anybody else find these in mint bags or anywhere else for that matter? I should take a sample to a show or send to an expert--Any suggestions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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