nick on oil dipstick, common?

I checked the oil for the first time in several months. (Not much risk in being that lazy, the car has only been driven about 150 miles a month lately and has never burned oil.) Two new observations:

The first was what looked like a scratch or nick going straight across the dipstick about 1/3 up from the bottom, only on one side. It was not very deep but I had not noticed it previously on this car (or anything like it on another car). Is this common? Is there maybe a little ledge where the tube enters the engine that might be pressing on the dipstick and cuts into it over time?

The second was that the level was a little hard to read because there was a dry yellowish coating, like a varnish, on the lower part of the dipstick. The oil is still quite clean and so was almost the same color. The coating all came off after a couple of minutes of pulling the dipstick across a paper towel, at which point a clean reading was obtained. It was full right to the top mark. It was about 100% easier to read once that yellow stuff was off though. Dirty oil would not have been so hard to read.

 

Bought it used in 2019 with 115K miles on it. Carfax shows that the first two owners had it serviced usually if not always at Toyota dealers at roughly 5000 mile intervals. It does not say what oil was used. The garage we use changed the oil once using "Valvoline 5W-30". That was just short of 3 months and 400 miles ago though, which is probably not enough time and use to do anything. The car is at around 122K now.

 

Dipstick pictures posted in this thread:

Found problem on dipstick | PriusChat