I've been going through and looking at a lot of the change i have and have found a couple that are interesting. I was wondering how common stuff like that is and if it's collectible/valuable or not. The P is filled in and almost looks like it's bubbled up a little. I haven't been able to get a good picture, I will try and post one by tomorrow or the next day. Also, is the position of the letters always the same? I have one that looks like the P is further down in the corner than it should be.
It's probably a die chip. Common occurrence. No premium added. But, still post a pic. It could be something else.
It does sort of look similar to that from the photos i've looked at so far, it's a bubble that looks higher than the rest of the P. I tried a few ways with what i have to get a photo you could see it on, no go so far though. I'll post one tomorrow from a digital camera or something anyway to be sure.
I thought it may be after looking at some examples. A perfect spot for one, it almost completely takes out the P. Out of curiosity though, is stuff like that worth keeping? Not the die chips, but if say the mint letter is filled in or looks odd? Here's a couple of examples of things i was wondering about, the first is the same dime, the second is a 1955-D with what looks like a little backslash above the 1955, the 3rd/4th was rushed and you can barely see, but it is a 1981-D where the D is filled all in, and i have another 1984-P where the P is filled in. Are these even worth keeping out?
I keep them just because it really didn't cost me anything and it's kind of neat. I have a collection of "twins"- coins with identical chips. I'll post it later in the Errors section. Twins: http://www.cointalk.com/showthread.php?t=169869&p=1159577#post1159577
I'll probably keep it too just because of the location. Are the ones with the filled in letters anything or does that just happen sometimes? I'm going to try and get a better pic of those and that 1955-D penny, that backslash looking thing almost looks like it was put there on purpose, it's hard to tell in that photo. I went to a coin shop today and got a new 2011 whitman us coins red book and looking through it has a lot of lists and info i was curious about, things to look for and stuff like that. Also picked up a bag of cheap unsorted wheats while a was there . Thanks for the help.
You have to remember that whatever is on the coin is reversed on a die. Raised details on the coin are incuse on the die. Therefore the "lump" you see on the mintmark is a hole in that spot on the die. A chipped die.
One of these guys probably knows, but a quick google search only pulled up one image and it had a question mark on it. I don't know though. I wanted to post a couple of last images real fast to let you all see what i'm taking about with those quarters. Are you saying those are die chips too then? Sorry about the quality on those, the person's camera i'm using is only here for like 5 minutes at a time and i never have enough time to figure out how to set it to manual focus. The 1st & 2nd are the 1981-D and the 3rd and 4th are the 1984-P, i tried to fix them so you could see what i mean a little better. These ones don't raise above the mint mark like the dime, these ones are smooth all the way across and fill in the holes in the letters more consistently.
This isn't unusual. I guess the best way I can explain it is by comparing it to pulling a (small) tree out of the ground. The root system takes some of the soil with it. In this case, when the "post" on the die that forms the loop broke away, it took some of the underlying metal with it. Chris