Guys, I've always sort of chuckled when I saw a coin described as "inverted s" because.. well.. you flip an S and what you have is an S.. Not too long ago, I was going through a full set of ANACS slabbed washington quarters at a dealer's shop and came across this 1944-S. While going coin to coin looking at mintmarks etc.. my first thought was "That S sure does look strange.. you know.. I think it is upside down!" I asked the dealer if he thought the S looked weird and he just glanced at it said "Looks like an S to me." Anyway, what do you think? I've not seen another one like it before. Anyone have a coin actually graded as an "Inverted S" by a TPG? The left side is the real coin, the right side is what you get when I rotate the S 180 degrees in photoshop. Obviously, the light/shadow is odd on the photoshopped side. Maybe I'm dreaming but doesn't the S look more natural on the right side? Thanks! snewman
It looks like a partial die chip at the upper serif of the S. There is no inverted S listed in the Cherrypickers Guide for 1944. A detailed closeup might show this better.
Yeah, many people initially think an inverted S is sort of silly as it would just be an S anyways... sort of like telling someone you have an inverted O mintmark!!! But when you see it, it's definitely different. Another popular inverted S mintmark is the 1909-S Barber Half FS-501. Here's my example graded PCGS MS64 and it does say Inverted Mintmark FS-501 on the label (was NGC MS65 before I crossed it over). And here's a close of up of the mintmark and a comparison done by PCGS using my coin for the PCGS CoinFacts website:
1968-S Kennedy Half Inverted S As you can see, the Mint's S mintmark is not completely symmetrical, and it does appear different when upside-down (the S mintmark has also varied enormously in size and shape over the decades). So it's not a moot point to turn it upside down in many cases. PS Y'all come see us this weekend at the Blue Ridge Numismatic Association show, Dalton Ga., Booth 319 (I think; check onsite), Friday through Sunday. More info: www.brna.org
illini: Beautiful piece. In case you were not aware, that variety, currently listed in the Cherrypicker's Guide was my discovery. And, snewman, your sure does look like an inverted S.
Great piece. Is it listed anywhere? And, has it established a market value? That is, aside from Cherrypicker's Guide, where they pull values out of the air, Have any sales been made?
A lot of these varieties are so rare they trade infrequently. The PCGS pop for PCGS #391224, the certified FS-511, is 1/4/2/2/2 in PR63/64/65/66/67. I paid several hundred dollars for this piece, the competition is keen for certified Cherrypickers' varieties in top grades. A lot of the PCGS prices for varieties are also absurdly low, but they are getting better about some of them, not all. Thanks for the compliment!
I too would pay several hundred dollars for that piece simply because they are EXTREMELY difficult to find! Better yet, I'd pay closer to a grand for that coin. The inverting of the MintMart is easy to spot since the serif's are different on the top and bottom of the S. For the 68-S Kennedy, the upper serif is straight with a split while the lower serif is a bulb. For the OP's coin, I definitely think its an inverted mint mark (CPG or no CPG since the CPG is NOT the Variety Collectors Bible but more of a publication of popularly "accepted" varieties within specifc coin series. There are MANY awesoe Eisenhower Varieties whioch are NOT listed in the CPG. The OP's coin has a triangular appearing serif whic appears to be common for that particular mint mark punch and that serif appears on the top on the one coin and on the bottom on the other coin which leads me to believe its simply inverted. Possibly a new discovery? I cut the Mintmark from each of the coins above and labeled them L and R respectively, then merged them into a single image. After that, I flipped the MM on the right and remerged them which shows them to be the same MM punch..
You apparently didn't read the OP's post since you did the same thing he did. His R picture is the same as his L picture, with the MM inverted in photoshop. You just re-inverted it and compared it to itself.
