1920 Buffalo Nickel For Discussion

Yes, minted in Philadelphia, as the mm would be on the reverse between and below the words five cents. Full horn and overall appearance looks into the AU-50 condition grade, with possible weak strike. I also see a clash mark spike coming off the buffalo into the motto E.P.U.

Thank you!




What is a clash mark spike? I did some research and are we talking about a die having a chip? Like in this case a chip that ran from the buffalo back to the EPU? Thus resulting in this imperfection?

I took a better pic to hopefully better identify that.



If this is indeed such an artifact, does it detract from the value or does it add a premium? Or irrelevant?

Thanks!

I gotta say it looks chemically restored. AU details.

I'll say AU.

LDS is "late die state"? If so could the die chip (still not sure if I understood the previous comment by mrwhatisit) reinforce this theory?

By the way, coin was inside a sealed envelope for the past 30 years. It was together with many other dirty coins (I'll post them!) so I would assume it wasn't cleaned 30 years ago when it was sealed (otherwise one would have cleaned the others too). Before that, it was probably left alone for 20 years. Before that (so talking about 50 years ago, when it was in the hands of its real first collector owner) I wouldn't know if it was cleaned or not. As for me I had my hands on it for about a week and so far I haven't cleaned it

Thanks to all for the comments and discussions, keep 'em coming!

The device looks hazy. There's also a streakiness to the field that I don't like.

After reading about how it was in an envelope for so many years, I realize what I was seeing is probably the action of the chemicals from the paper. Storing it in an envelope was not a good idea.

XF40 details, cleaned, environmental damage. Obverse has what might be a lamination peel at K2 below LIB. Clash marks at EPU, but I can't see the corresponding clash below the chin on the obverse, another strange observation. Very late die state so it may have been polished off the obverse die.

This entire coin looks odd. The rim separation at the top of the reverse is extremely unusual.

Looks like nobody answered this. A die clash is when the obverse and reverse dies bang together with no planchet in between them. Parts of the design from one side get transferred to the other die, and then subsequent coins get those "clash marks" minted onto the coin. The coin will then have those features backwards (because the die was essentially struck as if it were a coin, and then the planchet is struck as if it were being struck by another coin instead of a die, if that makes sense). In the case of US coins which use coin alignment, the clashed features are also upside-down.

mrwhatisit is pointing out that the vertical mark through Pluribus is probably a common place for these die clash marks. An overlay from maddieclashes illustrated this. It would be the portrait's neck line clashed onto the reverse die.