Greaser!! 1888/2 Or Cud On 8 - Overlay Pics

Thanks everyone for the info. I did some more reading about hand punching dies, making the dies, and the poor economic times during this phase of coinage hoping to prove me wrong, but now I have more questions than answers. I took more merge photos last night hoping to prove myself wrong and go along with everyone but the digits match up perfectly. I have a high def microscope coming to help me look at these coins. hoping to post photos when it arrives.
I now see why my grandmother was so fascinated with coins.

As to this comment, yes and no. Dies are made of hardened steel, so they have a tendency to rust and oxidize rather quickly when exposed to air. During storage in down time, the dies have grease slathered over them to protect the surface from etching through rust build up. Generally, as I understand it, most dies once put on the coining machine, stayed until they were pulled for end-of-life destruction due to wearing out (each type of die/planchet coin set has an expected die life span). Per Rick Snow's Flying Eagle & Indian cent Encyclopedia VOl. 2 this year IHC is;