S&L's had two or more cores during their 'life'. The earlier cores had 'squint-eyed' 9's in the 1939 date, like mine. The later cores had the more open-eyed 9's, like yours. I'll do a workup on that too to compare.
In the early cross notice the tall, sharp, narrow beading = new dies. On your cross your beading is fat on top, rounded, closer together = old worn dies. The wear is easily seen in the beading just adjacent the swastika. See how all of the beads are more developed, rounded from the worn dies, closer together? The features are still recognizable, but you can tell which frames were made from the new dies, and old worn dies.
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