1900 IHC Oddity / Expertise, If You Please?

This appears to be PMD to me as well. I think it was made with a hammer and die (not original die) but some sort of circular die like a thick pipe or washer to fit the coin but not protrude into the rim area. then the coin was struck with the die while laying on a thick piece of leather to protect the rest of the coin design. It's quite odd and like nothing I've ever seen before.

Is it possible that this coin was used in a piece of jewelry? The obverse was exposed to repeated contact and damage for years, or maybe decades, while the revere could have been protected from all the abuse. Just an idea as this only addresses the look of the coins obverse vs the reverse.

I don't see how this flattening could be from anything at the mint or on the original mint die.

For it to be PMD, there must be some Laws of Physics at work. What are they? How does one explain how the stands of some letters extend beyond the top-without the tops expanding as well? And, without obvious damage to them to accomplish this...

Going once.... going twice....

DECIDED

PMD

It's impossible to conclude the exact cause of such damage, but it is damage. Can you provide an explanation as to how this could have happened at the mint?

It's higher grade than LIBERTY indicates, and the "L"on the ribbon is mushy-not usually seen on 1906 IHC's. It would first seem that it was struck through a glob of die grease, which does marvellous things to the immages on planchets under intense die pressure. It's also obvious that whatever affected the image radiated energy outward, away from the center. That there is no damage to the rims or the reverse whatsoever dismantles most, if not all, PMD theories. Just one sample question: How could one hold the coin still, unmoving, to create the "damage" without evidence of that? It would be a Herculean task at best...

I had seen an instructable on how to make a "skull" on a coin by going at the sucker with sandpaper... perhaps the case here?

This post is of a "Run it up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes" nature. The path of least resistance ( PMD) has entered the conversation more than once. I recall only one "PMD! Case closed!" on the thread. Sandpaper doesn't work. No scratches that I can see under extreme magnification. I would LOVE it to be a prisoner with a spoon, but, alas, there'd be scratches remaining even after the PMD the coin suffered while circulating.

Using a 1900 VG-20 IHC as a control, I did some crude measurements at 9:00 and 7:00. At 9:00 I measured from the outermost ridge of the letter "D" to the tip of the nearest denticle. The control gave me 0.5 mm. The study piece, 0.375 mm. At 7:00 I measured from the outermost point of the bust to the nearest denticle. This gave me 2.2 mm on the control and 1.5 on the study piece. Note that the denticles at 7:00 on the study piece are compromised (probably by circulation). Full denticles would further reduce the span.

Next I measured from Liberty's nose tip to the nearest denticle. Control: 4.05 mm, study 0.375 mm.

Now to the flagpole! This coin brings to my mind a pizza chef getting a ball of pizza dough ready to toss. S/he begins by using a rolling pin to push the dough from a central point to all points on the compass - a squashing exercise akin to a coin press squashing metal out of field space and into devices.

On my coin I trace this happening. If you examine the motto you see the more heavily metalled sections (the vertical stems of the "T" and the "D", for instance) have been squashed radially outward and past the boundaries that the horizontal tops of these letters ought to have enforced.

The graceful and uniform flow of the bust into the field below intrigues me. My best guess (not my pigheaded assertion!), therefore, is a very late stage capped hammer die. Anyone inclined to salute?

Kevin