I just received a 1897 O Barber half dollar from a seller on ebay. Upon close inspection I noticed that the "O" mintmark is tilted noticeably to the right. It also appears to have the top flattened slightly anf there's a small metal protrusion extending from the 11 o'clock position.
I've never seen a Barber half dollar with a misaligned mintmark so noticeable and I looked through numerous ebay listings to see if I could find any -- no luck.
What's your opinion... is this an error coin or a counterfeit? If it's an error, is it worth anything more that the price of other coins in the same year, mint, and grade?
I also did a little looking around. I'm not an expert on this issue but I had a similar "MM appearance" a few months ago and the consensus was it was an odd PMD, something hitting the O just the right way to knock it to the right. Anyway, I didn't see any known varieties that I could find. My grading guess it's a G6 maybe * if you're lucky, Red Book says low mintage of 632,000 so might be worth a 150-200 bucks.
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