1944 “wood grain”

[joel]

What could have caused this wood grain effect? It is most pronounced on the reverse. I have never seen one like this before.

[onecent1909]

I say... post strike damage
looking at the close up pic of NT in CENT...
the field and the T have the same size and style cut.. This can not happen during the strike.
When the hammer die stops the strike and starts resetting for the next strike...
the metal of the blanks are liquid.. the metal flows into the devices making the design elements on the coin.
the field of a die is flat.
any liquid metal at the field would be flat not cut and grooved.

this proves that this was done after the strike...
the closest possibility to something even remotely close to this would be if the planchette had a full sided lamination.
The coin disk would have to separate before or after the strike.
separation before the strike would leave a falter field than your coin with a weak design as there would not be enough metal to "fill" the design
separation after the strike could leave a jagged surface. but the designs would be mushy... think of writing on 4 sheet carbon copy.. that first sheet you can read.... pull off the top 3 sheets.. and number 4 the writing is blurry, faint... mushy

cool looking ... but post strike damage.

hope this helps

[willbrooks]

I agree with John. I'm going with acid job.

[joel]

Onecent, you are a true professional by providing such a thorough and descriptive explanation. I truly appreciate the time and effort you put into helping me.
Thank you, Joel.

[jfines69]

I agree with the others that this is psd... I believe that it was at one time a woody but that some one has cleaned it... I noticed that the lines travel in the same direction on the obv and rev... I have done some testing on woodies that I have and this is what they looked like after the cleaning... Deep grooves and all!!!

[GrumpyEd]

I agree with those ideas.

It might have been a woody then acid treated or wire brushed and it brought out that pattern.
After whatever happened it circulated and retoned.

[jmkendall]

Actually, I don't think this is post strike damage. I started to notice coins like these when I was sorting. I too thought it was acid damage and put them in the cull bin. Then I noticed one that was affected in this manner, but oh so lightly. I started to collect coins with this feature until I had enough to put side by side; so that you could see a progression of sorts. The clincher came when I found a cent that had the same features as yours.....with remains of the "normal" surfaces. I'll see if I can find them and post pics. I have wondered, but really don't know, if this is a sever case of dezincification.Either post strike, or pre-stike with a resultant sheet lamination. I would love to hear BadThads thoughts on this.

[BadThad]

Acid exposure, the lines extend into the devices and metal is missing. The pattern likely results from a poorly mixed alloy, the same problem that causes woodies, where acid selectively remove the most easily dissolvable metal.

[jmkendall]

I have seen two types of coins with this feature. The first have without a doubt been subject to acid. But the second group have clear and normal rims not affected by acid. The visual cues are very similar. However; I don't know what acid would affect the reverse and obverse while leaving the rim intact. I'm somewhat familiar with acids. I have a degree in Aerospace Engineering from OSU. This btw is not meant to be argumentative. I know that I can come off sometimes as very formal or even aloof. An unfortunate result from my first Career as a Detective. I'm genuinely trying to understand this mechanism. In my searching I have seen acid dipped coins; shaved coins; hammered coins; and well just about anything that has been done to a coin. Heck; my cull bags have about 8k of lincolns out of about a half million searched. My training as both a Detective and an Engineer have shown me not to see similar features and think 'both are apples'. Likewise I try not to see an obvious defect, such as MD, and then dismiss all other doubling on the same coin as MD. Even a true 1955 DDO can have MD. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I would agree that most coins with those features are acid dipped; but for coins that have those features and have clear and flat rims; are they too acid dipped? And if so how? Because even the rims are square and undamaged on the ones I'm referring to. I'll see if I can dig some out and post them on a seperate thread. Thanks BadThad. I don't always agree with you, but I always respect your opinion.

[BadThad]

What if it was a thin layer and the rims simply contained the acidic material? Speculation on PMD is always a guess, the bottomline is that it's PMD. There are no mint processes that could cause this.

[GrumpyEd]

Another thing to consider is that you can find so much stuff like this in circulated bags but not much that's so extreme in unc.
That shows that most of the circs are either PSD or minor alloy issues that were exposed to something that made it look more extreme which to me is damage/env damage. It's impossible to explain exactly what caused most PSD other than good guesses based on what we see.