Lincoln Get A Bop On The Nose - What Is It?

Looks like graffiti to me, too.

"Either way just damage" is not relevant to my question, and is not very encouraging to new folks to the board (like me) to post more coins with questions. I am interested in what causes something I see often enough, not whether it is just damage or not damage.

Thank you to those who gave thoughts on this. I never considered purposeful graffiti-esque modification as a possibility but certainly won't rule that out.

I grabbed a few more examples for comparative material:

And yet most of these coins have no other major damage, not even scratches in the field right in front of the face. Whatever hits them hits them the same way each time and only leaves the punch in the face. My only thought has been something to do with the coin rolling machines that can leave the ring-shaped damage on the end coins.

Now that just might be IT! I remember those things well, and if you got two coins in there it would turn part way and jam. The rotation would likely spin the coin until it hit the metal almost parallel, missing the field but scraping hard into the face. And would explain why this is almost always in the same place on the coin, since people tended to put them in sorta face-up obverse out. I have seen examples of this hitting the bust from the top or the back, but almost always right in the face. Thanks! I believe that is the answer to the mystery.

The problem is that attempting to figure out the specific cause of damage on a coin can be something of a fool's errand unless you were the person who damaged the coin in the first place. There is an almost infinite number of ways to damage a coin and very few of them can be positively attributed so discussions regarding the cause of damage typically just turn into endless speculation with no true cause elucidated.