It is partially missing a part of the E and the R in AMERICA. I can't find anything like it online and I'm not sure what link or error to look for. Is it a true error and can anyone give me a website with this on it? Grease filled die?
@Sheila Ruley That's the thing about grease-filled dies. They can appear almost anywhere on a coin. Note that the "IC" is also affected. Chris
I saw that but it didn't stand out as much. I just wanted to make sure because I have not seen one like this before.
Grease and debris don't always fill an entire device. I've seen hundreds of examples of a partially filled die. Chris
Ok, well now I know better what I may be looking at. Thanks for the info. I see a lot of patterns but I am finding that there are things, especially doubled dies and MD, that confuses me. Pictures only do so much. I am more of a hands on learner, so it is going to take me a while to really get this figured out.
I see a Misaligned Die Strike on the Obverse side. It's a unique strike since the Rim is thicker at the bottom and thinner on the top. This makes me question the appearance on the Reverse side.. Maybe not a greaser at all.
You don't see em chris? Look at the parralell vertical lines in between the E R as well as in the loop of the R and behind the E. I had to look closely though. And also, depending on how well an area was polished you may not see any at all.
This one's a good example of the "question everything" philosophy which is getting me mocked elsewhere on CT. It's my feeling that confirmation bias is too well-embedded in numismatics as a whole, and it's hampering the actual progress of knowledge. There's a huge difference between "knowing a whole lot," and "knowing so much you believe you already know enough." Looking closer, the ER aren't the only weak letters - the right peak of the M is weaker than the left, and IC are also weak at the top. On the other hand, the final A seems "normal." That's one data point. One die is misaligned. Was it the hammer or the anvil die? We don't know - enough "hammer or anvil only" errors are known for Lincolns that we can assume there was no standard orientation for them. Is it relevant here? I don't think so, because the reverse weakness falls in the "transitional" area between closest and furthest on the misaligned die, where you'd expect such a condition to have a possible effect on the strike. The misalignment is a little off vertical, on the 7:00 to 1:00 axis, roughly, and the feature being discussed is at about 4:00 referencing the obverse. Another data point. The weakness is located in an area which ought to be unaffected by the "complexity" of the other face - with only the date opposite (the strike is of normal rotation, right? That's a consideration) competing for planchet metal. Date looks fine, so this datapoint is likely uninvolved. So let's address the possibility of grease first. I've always been leery of incompletely-filled letters as "greasers," because that has to assume something contrary to the laws of physics to happen. Grease is a liquid - a highly viscous one, but a liquid all the same. For grease to only partially fill a device/letter, we have to assume that it moved - as a liquid does - under the pressure of a strike more slowly than the metal of the planchet did, because the planchet metal obviously beat it to the space ultimately occupied on the struck coin. So, the metal had to be less viscous than the liquid. That just don't compute to me. Of course, we_have_seen strikethroughs and such likely formed by particle-embedded grease rendered strong enough to "dent" the die or prevent metal flow. You can add enough crap to grease to make it assume the properties of more solid materials. But then, it behaves like a solid, meaning it keeps its' shape when struck, distorting only minimally. On this coin, we'd have to assume that the grease managed to remain "thick" enough to only partially fill the letters, while at the same time remaining "thin" enough to flow evenly along the axes of weakness noted on the I and C. I have a hard time reconciling that, and am therefore deprecating grease as the culprit here. The same argument works against any other "foreign object/substance" being present during the strike. So, the preponderance of evidence - and never forget, unless someone comes up with interior video of the strike or the actual die pair involved, we're always only able to work towards the "most likely explanation" and certainty isn't happening - tends to indicate that the die itself has features which caused what happened here. Also in the differential is some sort of planchet defect - a localized "hardness" relative to the rest which caused it to be much more difficult to strike in that specific area. Which is more believable? In this case, the die seems to be the culprit. Die wear or sinking? Maybe, but we don't see evidence elsewhere of worn-die artifacts and the images are good enough to expect that evidence if it exists. Polishing? Maybe; the two radial lines between E-R in Sheila's detail images tend to be diagnostic. So, to make a very_long_story short, I lean towards die erosion in that area, and a close inspection of the die involved would likely indicate removal of die metal - via some unknown mechanism; we can't assume it was polishing with certainty - as the cause. If you approach every single coin you examine with the care and degree of detail orientation I've just typed out above, you will amass a large number of "first discoveries" and eventually become one of those considered an "expert" because you'll be one. You will also extract the maximum amount of "flavor" and satisfaction from your numismatic efforts. That's why I question everything.
I don't think those are polishing lines. They are too fine and equally spaced, and that is not what I normally see on Lincoln cents. Chris
@SuperDave, I don't mock you at all for questioning everything. You almost always add to my knowledge bank. I consider you the "Perry Mason of Coin Talk;" when I was an early teen I wanted to be a lawyer because of old Perry. Steve
Steph Curry is who he is because he shoots a million shots when it doesn't count. So when it does count, he drains it from halfcourt. We are too quick to make complete values judgments based on perceived monetary return, and our own preferences/prejudices. That isn't the complete list of things which have "value." Sheila isn't going to get rich or famous from this coin, and nobody else who's reading this thread (I never forget who I'm talking to; it ain't just you posting) will either. But hopefully everyone reading will find at least a small takeaway from every coin ever posted here, even if it's only a little practice of the methods required to find the ones that really count in a numismatically-substantive sense. Of course. As long as the rim is complete and undamaged, not much else explains it. That decision - that you're looking at a misaligned die - should always lead to the next thought: "What else, if anything, did this misaligned die cause to the resulting coin?" In this case, I think it's more camouflage than anything else, concerning other anomalies on the coin. Happens that way sometimes.
This is an example of die abrasion. I suspect it represents accidental die abrasion, but I can't rule out intentional die abrasion.
