Thread: Strange 1980 dime error.

I found this going through a box of "stuff" this morning and I thought it was cool. It looks like the dime was struck on a defective planchet. You can tell it was struck this way due to the weakness in the obverse strike. Any thoughts what caused the pitting in the center of the coin and towards the edge? Impurities in the planchet causing the clad layer to split away??

Very puzzling. As you say, the weakness at 5:00 and 7:00 on the obverse face would point to a genuine planchet error. On the other hand, the letters on the reverse seem oddly thin, as if they were etched by acid. The surface also seems unexpectedly rough. Out of curiosity, how much does the coin weigh?

It weighs 1.85 grams. Is it possibile that there were more clad layer remnants on the reverse when the coin was struck and they either immediately split or subsequently were lost later? Would this explain the thinning of the letters?

That's as light as a missing clad error. It's possible this started out as a genuine error and then the reverse was attacked with acid or some other harsh chemical. I'd like to examine it, if that's okay. You can contact me directly at mdia1@aol.com.

I have a copper coloured nickel weighing 4.83g. It looks like someone bathed it in acid. Yours looks much better than mine, so I assume yours is a legitimate error.

Originally Posted by LostDutchman

I found this going through a box of "stuff" this morning and I thought it was cool. It looks like the dime was struck on a defective planchet. You can tell it was struck this way due to the weakness in the obverse strike. Any thoughts what caused the pitting in the center of the coin and towards the edge? Impurities in the planchet causing the clad layer to split away??

I'm almost certain that in your post you are very close to being right on about what happened to your coin. All of this reverse damage looks to me like it was because
of the same thing , a defective planchet. some of the loose metal of the planchet looks to have already been missing before the strike and some of it looks to have been still on the planchet and got struck with the die then fell off the coin later.The last S in states clearly shows that this area probably still had some of the loose planchet material still there when struck. I hope you don't mind me giving you my opinion . This is just my best guess .

Since the weight of this coin approximates that of a missing clad error, perhaps that's what it is. Perhaps the exposed copper core on the reverse is simply disolored and chemically etched. What does the edge of your dime look like? Can you provide a photo of the edge?