Newbie Question

The initial reason was to stop counterfeiting. Also, it has been said that it is for people with visual disabilities to help them tell which coin I which. I always lean towards to counterfeiting reason, though.

For those that go out camping such coins are usefull in cutting up small branches. The edges are like a saw blade if rubbed back and forth fast enough. This is our governments way of helping out the outdoors people.
Not sure how this would help a blind person since if a Dime has those and so do other coins, then what is the advantage? I would think the size would be more inportant.
I too think this was covered somewhere in the past but have no idea for sure. Might get a real answer soon, maybe.

when coins were mostly silver, believe the reed edges also helped prevent people from taking metal off the edge for selling

Nice artwork opal and

And it goes back a long time too. This is a St. Patrick Farthing 1674-75. They didn't do this to prevent counterfeiting however, it was to prevent clipping. They did add a brass "Splasher" (a molten piece of brass on or near the crown) to prevent counterfeiting.

The Romans were the first to attempt some kind of clipper-and-counterfeiter-foiling edge on silver coins, with their serrated denarius, circa 100 BC. But lacking modern mechanical methods to put a proper edge on the coin, this attempt was as ineffective as it was crude.

Once coinage struck by machine rather than by hand became the norm, roughly in the period 1500-1600, elaborate edge patterns could be implemented. Ordinary up-and-down reeding is one of the simpler techniques. A reeded edge can, however, be a more subtle anti-counterfeiting aid. British five pound gold coins, for example, always have exactly 183 reeds on their edge - a number that most counterfeiters can't be bothered to replicate accurately. This fact proved to be crucial evidence in the Gee counterfeiting case here in Australia in the 1970s: Gee's counterfeits had 184 reeds.

Now that circulation coins are no longer struck in precious metals, the reeding serves no functional purpose. It's continued use can largely be put down to tradition. With machine-struck coinage, they have to put some kind of edge on the coins - it may as well be the traditional reeding pattern as anything else.

a great question and welcome

I've had it a couple years now. I purchased it from a dealer in Australia. It was raw but is now in a PCGS Genuine holder. It has fantastic detail but looks to have some tooling.