1984lmc..crack All Around Coin

What does the outside rim look like?

This appears to be pre-plating damage similar to a case I reported earlier in Coin World:

http://www.coinworld.com/Articles/V...plating-dama

I would think it has some value. There's just not a huge fan base for this form of subtle pre-strike damage. If you're going to pitch it, just send it my way.

Here it looks once again like the tops of the letters covered by the apron are stronger and clearer than the bottom portion of the letters. That would be consistent with pre-strike damage. Now, if the tops of the letters were less clear, that would be consistent with post-strike damage. You see, the same kind of damage can occur before or after the strike. In most cases it happens after the strike, outside the Mint. When it happens after the strike the thin apron of metal covers the letters and over time comes to mold itself to the underlying relief.

In your specimen I also notice that the top of the W of WE is flatter and less distinct than the rest of the W. This would be consistent with pre-strike damage because when the apron falls away after the strike, you have a struck-through area.

Since copper-plated zinc cents can be damaged both before and after plating, we can identify specimens with pre-plating damage and others with post-plating damage. Both forms of damage would be subsumed under the larger category of pre-strike damage. Since copper-alloy cents are not plated, we only have to define one category -- pre-strike damage. On rare occasions it's possible to identify damage as having occurred before or after upset, but that is another story.

Yes, this is post-strike damage. Most of the time this sort of damage occurs after the strike. I never use the term PMD (post-mint damage) because similar sorts of damage occur inside and outside the Mint.