Help potentially a very exciting wheaty error!!!! 1953 D high mint mark! Help

I was searching through my wheaties, and noticed a cent that has a high D mint mark very close to the year. It is an obvious error even when seen from far. I also can't find any information online, i was hoping someone could help me. Is this a desirable error?

 

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prior to 1990 the mintmark was applied to the die by hand and anywhere within the area is considered normal.

Richard

 

But it's still interesting to keep examples of the extremes (very high or very low) mint marks. No added value though, and as ziggy stated, not an error.

 

aww, thats 2 bad...is it even possible to mark them by hand? why does the mark move really? thx for the help

 

They handstamped the dies so different dies had different mm locations

 

What ziggy meant is that the Denver mint received the dies from Philadelphia, sans mint mark. Back in those days, a mint employee would manually add the "D" mint mark to the obverse die, using a metal punch. The placement of the mark was determined by how many brews the guy had the night before, but they would generally get it somewhere near and below the date. Nowadays the mint mark is part of the engraving process, so the location is fixed.

 

woops next time i should read...u did say hand tamped the dies the first time i thought i read coins..,silly

 

Here's the other extreme-- a 1974-D cent (right side) with the mintmark practically touching Lincoln's jacket.

 

this is all great info to have, I'm still learning so this coin was defiantly valuable in teaching me something. That D mark is crazy by the way, but yeah i'll still keep it after alll its worth something to me and obviously u guys keep them as well so why not.

 

Not worth any premium since the MM's are over the place prior to 1990. Nonetheless, some of us do keep a few unusually placed MM cents in our collections as a novelty/educational tool.

 

"Help potentially a very exciting wheaty error!!!! 1953 D high mint mark! Help"


Take a deep breath.



Okay, no biggie.

 

So THAT'S why they're called "high" mint marks!

 

Its actually an interesting discussion. You know what, if a guy, (or gal, or kid), wanted to put together an interesting collection for almost nothing collecting different mint mark locations by year for lincoln cents could be a lifelong hobby. All one would need is some kind of a calibration system to be able to document the different locations the mm shows up.

If you think about it, its not really that much different than what is done with large cents and their varieties.