enamel, Although it would appear to be the case, that is not what happened! While I merely explained that the Die was severely stressed and/or damaged and although it is possible that it was a factor, I am sorry to say that I was wrong in my assessment of the coin! I believe Mike Diamond (with the help of others) recently wrote about the cause of beveling of the surface of coins just inside the rims that also causes weak and/or obliterated lettering or Date digits. The article highlighted "Vertically Misaligned Dies" as being the cause and from looking at the Obverse and Reverse of hogan's coin, it is apparent that the Dies were misaligned. Although it appears that both of the Dies were misaligned horizontally from each other, it is likely that one or both were misaligned vertically, thus causing not only the appearance of being horizontally misaligned but also causing the beveling on the coin and the weak and/or obliterated (smeared) lettering. While I found another article about the same and have posted the link to it below, it is not the article that I read and I will try to locate the article and post it here on the forum.
