Copper Penny - Mint Error or After Mint Damage

[Appalachianman76]

Hi everyone. I found this penny metal detecting yesterday. It has interesting marks on both sides. I'm wondering if any of you coin experts can tell me if the marks are mint error or are they after mint damage? Thank you for your time and help.

 

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[kcm]

Damage - 100%

 

[kingskid1611]

Pmd looks like someone had it between a lathe or some type of machine trying to drill a hole.

 

[nsdq]

Looks like somthing have done when i use a small vise and the pivot disk is missing

 

[enamel7]

Definitely damage.

 

[Appalachianman76]

Thanks everyone! I appreciate you helping me learn.

 

[kcm]

Sorry for the super-brief post earlier, but the site was running really slow for me earlier.

It's hard to tell on the obverse, as there is so much green covering up what happened. However, if I had to take a guess, I'd say that someone was maybe trying to use a very small hole saw while having the edges clamped in a vise. "IF" this was the case, then the hole saw didn't have a center bit, or else there would be a 1/4" hole in the center. ...Maybe someone was wanting to experiment with making a coin ring?

Anyway, is much easier to see the damage on the reverse. You can tell from the not-so-round scrapings that some portion of this "experimenting" was done freehand - my guess is it was a hand-held drill. There are small hole saws such as these that do not have pilot bits:
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41f+uWBJI5L.jpg

Obviously all I can do is guess, but this "should" be a fairly good guess as I grew up working with my Dad in his sheet metal machine shop. Have been in manufacturing most of my life, whether as a hobby or for pay. So am guessing that the obverse was done the same way, but using a larger hole saw. They really should have used an ordinary twist drill bit!

...And welcome to Tnet!