1866 Shield Nickel With Rays Error Obverse Error?

The close up shot is that of a Retained Cud. It does add value to the coin, but cracks and Cuds on this era of nickle are quite common. I would venture a guess of VG on this coin.

39 different Cuds listed in The Cud Book on Shield nickels from 1866 alone. The pictures are blurry and hard to match up to yours, but there are a couple that look like yours, so it is likely 'listed'. Pretty cool.

There are a lot of cracks on that piece. The OD is already part of a Retained Cud. The much larger piece is also shifting and starting to form a Retained Cud at the other end as well with the area around the are displaced. As mentioned it is cracked at 9:00 on the obverse but there are two cracks there one going to the fourth leaf cluster and one up to the third leaf cluster. There is a crack from the top of the cross down through the right arm into the first leaf cluster on the right. There is a crack from the longest leaf in the fourth cluster on the right striaght down to the rim. There is another crack from the left curl by the ball, through the ball and both 6's. I can't tell if that last one reaches the rim.

On the rev there is a crack from the rim - O over the F and A - MERIC down through A through the field below the rays to the top of the S in CENTS. There is a second crack through the bottoms of CENTS and out into the field below the dot.

The mint was having fits with the coppernickel alloy and die life was abominable. At the beginning of the Shield nickel series they were only getting a die life of ten to fifteen thousand coins per die. This compares to over 200,000 coins per die for the other non-coppernickel coins.