What's it look like on the other side? Maybe the head broke off from overtightened it when they screwed the nickle to the wall?
Cool looking anyhow.
Printable View
Interesting,
Sure looks like someone screwed Jefferson to me. Wonder if press lost a screw and got in way when this nickel was struck? It looks raised, not indented as one would expect if stamped in after being struck. Very strange, can you tell if anything of normal nickel is seen in this X area?
Good luck and health to all, Mike
I did contact a few coin experts, i emailed and asked their opinions, looking over their sites they do list minting errors with strange indents, but haven't seen one listed that looks like this. You are right though, the X is raised, but the circle around it is indented, very odd.
Whatever you do...hang on to it until you are POSITIVE it is not a minting error!! Good luck. I hope she has found a treasure!
The X being raised and the circle being indented indicates the screw head was upside down and pressed into the surface of the nickle.
Several possible scenarios. Possibly from being squeezed in a vice, and the pattern came from one of the screws on the face of the vice jaws....
Or the nickle got lodged between two wooden boards with a screw head right over Jefferson's tie-line.....
Or someone deliberately turned a screw over and proceeded to use the upside down screw as a "stencil" to mark the nickel....
Or the nickel found it's way into the machinery of the US Mint "Nickel Stamper" and was pounded unintentionally by a part of the minting press...This one would make it very valueable indeed....
For the last scenario, you would almost need to have the nickel examined by a coin expert at high resolution to determine if maybe the brand and type of screw could be "lifted" from the "print". Maybe something there, maybe not!
Cool Avatar at the very least!
Good luck!
numismatic