1992 Type 2 Nickel: Re-engraved Beaver

@Rocky:
The two original pictures are not lined up right to begin with. There is a slight rotation on one. I suspect this is causing the lettering not to line up.
Test:
Scroll the first pic Dredge posted up to the top of your browser window until the letters in Canada start to touch it.
Not eht C in Canada touches first, and when the C touches, there is a gap over the A. This shows the 1st pic is rotated slightly clockwise.

Now do the same with his second pic. you will note the A in CANADA contacts the top of the browser window first and there is a gap over the letter C. The second picture is rotated slightly counterclockwise.

Making an overlay with these two pictures will cause lettering (and the tail etc.) not to align perfectly.

There also is a slight tilt to the second picture that is barely perceptible like the camera got bumped or moved when pressure was put onto the camera/phone(?) to take the picture. That tilt will also make distortions in the overlay.

Second - parallel scratches (?)
I took the pics from the link mentioned above and noted the all lines of the extra hair are not only all parallel with each other, but one outside the beaver extends up and beyond the beaver's backside. It looks as if something damaged the die and made parallel lines that happen to be positioned in a convenient place to make the Beaver;s hair look different. The flow of the parallel lines interrupt the natural curvature of the hairs in the beaver's tail while extending down and out.



While this does look like a damaged die to me, other coins are collected in a series as varieties made under similar circumstances. I don't know the "rules" for proclaiming something an actual variety, but if there are enough of these out there to be found, they could become popular as a "variety." Its not PMD.

If you wanted near perfect coins,compare the NCLT minus the silver cost component of production and that would give you an good idea of costs of producing an circulating near perfect coin,just can't happen. If you keep collecting minor variations, your collection would be near impossible to resell latter, you see all the time at auctions where dealer stock of pages of minor stuff gets no bid or token bids

It's good to see modern classics popping up. This is exactly why I save all my pennies and pre-2002 nickels.

@Dredge
Its all about the fun we each have enjoying coins the way we like to. That is what makes a hobby - FUN as defined by the one having the fun.

I once tried to look into VAMs on dollars. It took so long for me to try to ID just one coin (multiple occasions with different Morgans) that it was not worth it to me. But someone else would enjoy that kind of (what I saw as) tedious hunting and think I was crazy for not wanting to join in on the fun. No right or wrong in this case - just differences in how we humans were designed.

Dredge: I assume you're talking about collecting die cracks, clash marks, etc. on modern coinage. Because if you look at what's on Canadian Victorian cents you'll go absolutely wild! Did you ever look at my on-line catalog of the Canadian 1859 N9 cent?

SPP: Are you talking about the re-engraving of dies or matrices?

In 1965 the medium beads dollar obverse was created by modifying a freshly-sunk small beads die.

I'd be interested to hear how you think die re-engraving was involved in the 1955 Arnprior dollar.

I cannot remember who told me that, perhaps Paul B. or David B. at the currency museum... several years back.