PMD or something more?

[mrbadexample]

Protest against the King or random damage? 

[Peckris 2]

Given the corresponding raised sections on the reverse, and the thickness of the coin, it must have been hit with some very serious force!

[mrbadexample]

15 minutes ago, Peckris 2 said:

Given the corresponding raised sections on the reverse, and the thickness of the coin, it must have been hit with some very serious force!

Yes, it's not very accidental is it? 

[Paddy]

I can't see it as a protest - the cuts would relate more to the king's bust if that was the intention. (Across the neck or defacing the features.)

Maybe someone testing the hardness of a tool?

[1949threepence]

Difficult to say whether deliberate or accidental. Could have got caught up in some machinery, or maybe testing the strength of another instrument.

The marks look a bit too random to be a statement against the King.

Also, given the age of the coin, we don't really know when it was done in the intervening 224 years. Although clearly not too recently !  

[mrbadexample]

35 minutes ago, 1949threepence said:

Also, given the age of the coin, we don't really know when it was done in the intervening 224 years. Although clearly not too recently !  

They appear, to me at least, to be contemporary. 

I appreciate all of this is speculation, of course.

[Sword]

19 hours ago, Paddy said:

I can't see it as a protest - the cuts would relate more to the king's bust if that was the intention. (Across the neck or defacing the features.)

Maybe someone testing the hardness of a tool?

I agree. If it was intended as a protest, then two marks making a cross over the face would seem more likely.

[mrbadexample]

Thanks all. Random vandalism seems the most likely then.