Drastically Underweight 1971 Half Dollar- Thoughts?

My first thought was that it was left in an acid which removed a good portion of the exterior, but this does not have the appearance of an acid treated coin.

Next I considered it to be a contemporary counterfeit, which would actually make it more valuable than a genuine coin of that date. Kennedy counterfeits are very hard to find. But it doesn't show the typical surfaces of a cast counterfeit.

So perhaps there is that remote chance that it was struck on an improper blank, although I don't know what the weight variance might be.

Ill keep watching to see what the consensus might be on this oddity, although I can't give much help by only guessing what it isn't rather than what it is.

Looks like a partial clip on the obverse.

I see a lot of crud plus a mark at about 2:00 on the first pic where it looks like it was forcibly pried from another coin. Maybe it got *really* dirty and someone soaked it in vinegar for a month to extract the coins from the goo?

I would suggests having it tested to see what type of metal
it is. The more that you can confirm, the closer you might
get to figuring out what it is.

I am not sure why someone would fake a copper-nickel coin.

My first thought was that the planchet was missing the core- just two cupronickel layers bonded together. However, I think the core must account for more than 19% of the weight, and the resulting thin planchet wouldn't strike up too well.

I'm leaning toward acid or fire damage.

Davec13
That is very interesting. I wonder why they would not make overweight indtead of underweight counterfeits as they were getting paid by weight

It could have been someone trying to perfect the "art" of counterfeiting before going to the valuable coins.

Thanks for looking at it. The odd thing is, no part of the coin has the appearance of a normal clad coin. The entire thing is an odd silver color (including the rim).




Thank you for examining the coin. I do not believe it the coin came into contact with acid either, as I see no signs of pitting, nor any other indications the surfaces of the coin were compromised. There is just extensive physical damage.

I didn't realize contemporary counterfeits were made of non-silver coins. Do you know of any available resources on these? I'd definitely be interested in looking into that further.

That's one thought I had too, as I pondered all of the "options." The coin does sound like a clad one when it's dropped, but oddly enough, no part of it actually looks like one.




Thanks! I guess we can rule that out, then.




Yes, I saw that too. It's strange that the coin has so many "issues"!




No, I see no signs of one. The rim is silver-colored too. In addition, there are countless nicks, scratches, chips, etc. in the coin, and underneath every one of them there is that strange, not-quite-actual-silver color.




There is definitely a lot of junk around Kennedy's bust, but the layer itself is really thin. It is also crystalline in appearance, almost like some kind of mineral. But the coin itself shows no signs of pitting or etching, as I think would be the case with a soaked coin.




Thank you for looking at it. It's difficult to see in the pictures, but the blackened areas on the coin are actually thin and crystalline in appearance, and seem as if they could be rubbed off with a solvent. Oddly enough, they are also only present on one side of the coin; the other side exhibits only physical damage.




I would definitely be interested in doing so, but will have to look into where I might be able to do that. I'll keep you posted!

Nor am I. There can't be much profit in doing so.




Thanks for the suggestion. I'll try looking around and see if there are any possibilities in that respect.

That's actually the first thought I had when I weighed the coin and found out it was underweight by over 2 grams. This possibility would seem to be supported by the massive physical damage all over the coin, as well as the appearance of being struck from some kind of off-metal.




Thanks for taking a look at it. In response to your statement about the core, I cannot actually see it through the rim. The rim itself is very thin and heavily nicked/ chipped. Underneath the chips, there is just that same off-silver color.

Underneath all of the damage, the strike itself does appear to be fairly regular; it's just the overall appearance of the coin that has us all puzzled!

I'm actually not sure about the fire or acid. The blackened areas are thin and crystalline in appearance, and I do not see any signs of bubbling, pitting, etching, etc. (as I think would be the case when the surfaces of the coin were attacked in some fashion).




Thanks for looking at it. The coin has definitely seen better days, but I cannot imagine any number of nicks, scratches, etc. adding up to 20% of the overall weight of the coin. Just to see how much weight excessive circulation wear might strip away, I weighed a "bare disc of silver" Barber half dollar. It was about 1.4 grams off from the standard of 12.50 grams, yet this particular half dollar shows nowhere near that kind of wear.