1945 Walker Missing Designer's Initials

This coin was purchased raw this morning, in a ring type airtite. I use numismedia (NGC's site) for gauging prices, though I realize those listings are for certified coins. I have a relatively extensive collection, and have yet to buy a slabbed coin, or have one slabbed...with one exception. I had a Maryland dealer submit an 1850 Seated dollar a few yeas ago for me. That coin was subsequently sold, so I don't have a single slab in my safe. I keep many of the coins in some nice old Wayte Raymond brown albums.

I'm getting to the point where I may have to suck it up and join a TPG ... I have plenty of coins that are worthy, but have always figured that the cost of membership would buy a few more coins...like this one. It hasn't really mattered, since I do more buying than selling.

The bulk of the seller's listings are lots of blank planchets, minor off center errors and the like. Its always hard to figure out where these accumulations come from, or who is selling them. There are a couple more half dollars that may bear closer scrutiny as well. They may be varieties, or maybe not, but I'm going to have a look.

Chance

Wait until you have 8 surefire candidates - that's the most cost-effective membership level in view of the free submissions. This one is absolutely one of them.

By the way ... PCGS has only graded 3 of these at 64 ... none higher.

Chance

Considering the initials are incuse it would be rather difficult to hide that kind of an alteration. (deeper hole in the coin, disruption of the luster and flowlines.)

These missing initials are known for a few different dates. I'm surprised they don't show up mote often. Since the iitials are incused on the coin they have to be raisd on the die making them the highest thing on the die. You would think that most any polishing of the dies would remove them because they would be the first thing to be ground off the die.

Must you make so much sense all the time?

I'd have self-destructed years ago were it not for Conder.

I have finally taken time to really study this coin. I was looking for other die markers to try and make certain that this coin and the heritage one matched.

At the end of the sun ray that points toward Liberty's navel, there appears to be remnants of a die gouge (under heavy polishing lines) where the engraver apparently slipped when re-cutting the stripe detail in the flag. Both the heritage example and this coin have that attribute. There's also remnants of an earlier die clash that's been polished out below the motto "In God We Trust", again ... present on both coins.

The reason I wanted to look that closely, is because if you turn it at just the right angle to the light, a faint trace of the initials is evident .... IF you knew it was there and what it was supposed to look like, you can see it faintly. Looking closely at photos of the heritage specimen, you can see it manifest itself in the same way.

If that one is FS-901, so is mine. If it isn't, neither is mine.

The 2 coins were definitely struck with the same die pairing.

Chance

It's the same as this one. If a person knew what the monogram looked like, and knew where it was supposed to be,they'd be able to make out a shadow of it. If, OTOH, they didn't know, they'd never suspect anything was supposed to be there.

Good to see you here in the forum, Ken. Your reputation precedes you. I appreciate your input, as I do that of SsuperDave. He's a knowledgeable fellow and always willing to share. I wish I had the photography skills of either of you, but there's a limit to what once can do with an 89 dollar camera.

You know I've been looking for the flying eagle $20 clash for 2 years or more. That one you posted is just exceptional.

Chance

Chance, Cascade and all, thank you!