Weird 1998 Penny

Found a 1998 penny the other day in some rolls I was digging through. Caught my attention because of how it felt.

 

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Also noticed these on the same penny

 

If you click on the first 5 pics, you can see them bigger.

 

spooned or in a clothes dryer for a wile, thats if i were to guess

And Welcome to Cointalk, its a great place to learn.

 

That penny has been spooned, which is generally what people do in the process of making a coin into a ring, or, like coervi said, it could have spent a while in a clothes dryer.

 

Ditto.

 

The coin that caught my attention is the one you are comparing it to, it looks like it has a retained cud at about 2:00. Is there a 'lump' on the rim there?

 

I didnt know what spooning was so i looked it up and it looks nothing like a penny that has been spooned. A spooned penny gets kinda "smushed" i guess you could call it. Like the year and all the lettering around the edge gets rolled up. This penny just has a huge lip around it. You guys get what i mean?

And the other penny is a 1984.

 

The 84 just looks like damage close-up.

 

It is difficult to determine which it is. If a coin is spooned properly it looks the same as a dryer coin. The "smushed" ones that you've seen are done by someone inexperienced. Here is a couple of other examples. One is a pic of a cent and another of a dime:

http://www.cointalk.com/t43462/

Pic copied from coop

 

I guess it looks more like that. How does a dryer do that to a penny though?

 

They are stuck inside one of the inside fins of the dryer drum bouncing around sometimes for a long time.

 

So they get smushed and the edge kinda flattens out? so that would mean the the diameter would be smaller then a normal penny... but it is the same size as other pennies.

 

Alright.... that isn't mentioned or evident in the pics. If that's the case, I have no idea what you have.

 

The coin in question is a small cud. A lot more interesting than the dryer coin.

 

I am not anywhere near an expert, but I do search boxes and boxes of cents. I have found several with thick rims. Some as thick as a 5c piece. I believe that when the cuts are rolled, that some roll out with a heavier rim. The diameters seem the same as a normal coin, which I would not expect if hammered, spooned or in a clothes dryer. Many of these coins also exhibit a very strong strike.

While I don't think these are errors or have any added value, I think they were minted that way. As we also see some that are thinner, I expect your coin was made from a metal strip that was to the widest side of specifications, the cut rolled to produce the thick rim then stamped.

The doubling you see is caused by the stamping machine and not true doubling.

As I stated, this comes only from my personal obversations and has no support other than my opinion.

gary

 

I don't think it's a cud, you can see the underlying zinc.

possibly, if the blob is raised and the zinc is on top, but it looks gouged.

 

what is a cud?

I have a 1951 wheat s-mint with a bubble of copper on the tail of the '9' in 1951. It is visibly raised and you can feel it. Whats that? lol.

 

That is a die chip, a small piece of the die chipped away, causing a raised area on the coin. if the edge is damaged and the rim is involved, it's called a cud. If you search for 'cud' you can see what I'm talking about, the 84 looks like a cud, but you can see zinc, so it is probably a gouge, hard to tell by the picture. Also, try searching 'die chip' for more info.

 

It looks like a cud to me. I think you see the zinc because the area is larger then normal and it made the copper plating thin... and therefore you see the zinc through it.