If you look at the enlarged Sterling scan, the "at" is clearly there, just a bit weaker as is much of the back, probably just underinked as is often found. The diagonal mark thru it might be some foreign matter on the plate, hard to say. Either way it might be a printing anomaly, but certainly not a new "variation". If in fact that several more can be found with the same mark, and weak letters, it is just that a group of cards that had some foreign matter in the road during a brief part of the printing runs.
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