1925, Educate Me

[Pareidoliac]

Help me understand what I am seeing on the reverse of this '25 Peace dollar.

It appears there is substantial die wear and pitting that was heavily polished away leaving the remnants of that wear and pitting and lots of polishing lines. Is that what I am seeing?

Question: Prior to the heavy die polishing I assume there was a very worn die with pitting and possibly rust. True? Then, the die would have been polished to clean it up, correct? If that is correct, would there then be two separate listable VAMs, one prior to polishing and one after polishing?

Protruding from the eagle's mouth (actually starting in the middle of the head) is a long die scratch extending to through the N in UNUM. Based on what I know, a scratch is not listable by itself. But...

Question: If the unusual die scratch is paired with the heavy polishing, would the die scratch together with the heavily polished die be a listable combination?

[...kenny]

As I understand it, and it's been a while for me to go through the guidelines(there are others better than I). The polishing and pitting 'is' listable. The 'scratch' would 'only' be a secondary attribute even if on the same die...kenny

[VamHelsing]

The "scratch" appears to me to be a die break.

[messydesk]

I just see a heavily worn die with a minor crack at the beak. Nothing listable.

[Pareidoliac]

The 1AB is a listed rusted worn right reverse.

The obverse of this coin does not have the die scratch through the Y as seen in 1AB. So it’s not 1AB. If this coin has the same reverse as the 1AB but a different obverse die, could it be a new listable variety?

[Pareidoliac]

But I don’t see a beak break on the 1AB so this is a different reverse than the 1AB.

[RogerB]

There is no rust; no extensive manual polishing.

What you see is steel deterioration in combination with granular ablation and abrasion. A little more advanced version would be called "Starburst."

[RogerB]

This was a significant problem with 1913 P-D-S Type 1 dies also. Fine steel particles from the rough field and relief ablated off the dies and ground out details. This also created starburst dies and Engraver Barber complained of having to make a lot of dies to maintain production. As a result he asked Fraser to approve certain changes. Everything except making the date incuse or placed within a recessed cartouche was approved.