Flying Eagle Error ... No Date

the weakness in the legends points to that too. If Struck Through Grease, that's a dramatic one!

I think I can make out 1857..

Thanks all for your insight.

bmanofnbc -- Don't get my hopes up!

Funny Money -- I kind of see the horizontal line that you may be referring to that looks like the top of a 7. Looking closer at the original scan (and playing with the contrast to accentuate it) I don't think it fits the characteristics of a Flying Eagle's 7...but it's close. The angle of the very faint line seems a little too horizontal and the right side seems to round off instead of come to a point. Looking at the original coin it's really tough to pick up any such indications of these faint lines. It's really tricky...thanks for raising my interest.

I'm uploading a larger view, with bumped up contrast. And the second image is a different scan of the same coin, just to see if a slightly different angle reveals anything. Hmmm...this is a good mystery. I need to examine the actual coin more.

The copper nickel alloy was kind of hard for the mint to strike up and I have seen a fair number of pieces with weak dates. Add a little grease and it isn't surprising that the date may disappear completely. It isn't a spectacular enough error to really have a premium, so then you have the fact that it has a missing date and you have just turned off a lot of the non-error collectors. End result is that it most likely has a lower value.

The rim should be protecting the date. To wear the date down completely the rim would also have to be worn down completely or at tleast the bases of the digits still be visible.

The scan really isn't a good judge for the wear on the coin...on the actual coin itself the bottom rim is more distinct than the image, with a small bead of the lip of the rim remaining. There's some wear on the lower portion, but definitely not enough to completely eliminate the date.

Another thing I just now noticed...the reverse is rotated about 5 degrees.

Did anybody notice that the eagle's beak is.... well... not there?

I was just about to comment on that took. That seems to lend creedence that it was struck through something, but I am still relatively inexperienced with errors.