1805 Draped Bust Dime (4 Berries Jr-2)

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Okay guys, I need someone who knows their Draped Bust Dimes to educate me!

Take a look at this 1805 JR-2 as shown on PSGS:

https://www.PCGS.com/coinfacts/coin...berries/4477

That is an MS67 example. This page shows other grades:

https://www.PCGS.com/coinfacts/coin.../images/4477

Here's one in MS65 for sale for $44k:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/175372454810

They appear to sometimes have dozens of perfectly straight and parallel diagonal gouges running across the entire obverse and reverse. On that second link, you can see that in the various MS grades, there appears to be a lot of damage acceptable even at these high grades, though sometimes it is just isn't present. That ebay MS65 even has a chunk of the rim missing on the obverse at 8:00.

What the heck was going on with the mintage of these to allow such a wide range of "defects" that do not count against the grade. I get the whole idea of weak strikes and die states, but this seems pretty extreme!

They are called file marks or planchet adjustment marks.

The planchet (coin blank) was weighed to a standard, and if it was overweight, a bit of filing would be done to bring the weight into specification.

They are not considered damage.

Early silver (though mostly on foreign coins) also will sometimes show test marks, which is where merchants and bankers would remove a bit of silver to make sure the coin was authentic and not something such as a silver-washed lead or copper counterfeit. Test marks are technically post-mint damage but the extent to which they affect the value of a coin, if at all, varies widely between collectors.

I'm seeing "roller marks" (from when the planchet strips are extruded) because I'm not aware of adjustment marks being so uniform, maybe they are? but either way it shouldn't affect the grade as @paralyse says.

Amazing that 10 or more superb gems survive of this variety. I suppose that the smaller coins acquired fewer hits from rolling around in bags.

They look more like roller marks than adjustment marks. They are very shallow and in great numbers on the coins you posted. Both sides too.

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