This coin has something going on with the Rim that I am not familiar with. On the Obverse it has no rim at all but you can see where it should be the plating is missing. On the reverse the strike seems to be slightly miss-aligned and the rim has a low profile and not square like typical coins. I didn't pull out my caliper or scales but the coin does look to be slightly thinner than normal as well. Also notice that the tops of the letters on the IGWT is missing their plating with a slight taper downwards toward the rim. Does anyone know what caused this? TIA
I reviewed the entire rim (both sides) under my scope and besides the usual contact marks (AKA PSD) the surfaces are level with the fields with no signs of tooling, grinding or sanding. I am familiar with most methods of removing, modifying or re-facing metals and they all leave evidence of the process used to do so, this one does not which is why I posted the question. If you notice the pictures I posted from the side, the rim and fields on the Obverse are level which means that the design features of Lincoln's bust, IGWT, LIBERTY and the Date are higher. It would be near about impossible to remove the rim without damaging or leaving signs on those details. Also note that the rim on the Reverse is at about half of the normal height in the SE quadrant while loosing height in both directions around to the NW which is about 1/4 to 1/3 normal. I'm not saying it is or it isn't PSD but this is not the first I've seen similar to this and it would be nice to have a logical explanation for such an error or damage. Knowledge is power!
Well I said it was worn (somehow) as your picture shows the zinc planchet showing through where the copper plating is gone/missing/worn.
I also said PMD and looks ground. Look at the top of all the letters in the motto. Look at the bottom of Lincoln at 5-6 o'clock and the "L" in Liberty. They are show the same signs that Markus says, Zinc plating showing. It's PMD. Period.
I took the time today find my scales just to confirm my suspicions and this is what I found. Its weight is spot on, therefore the rim hasn't been removed or ground off as suggested. The pictures I posted earlier apparently didn't get across what I can see through my loop or scope so I will try to take some better pictures tomorrow to show what I tried to explain earlier. I know this is an aggravating topic and a dead subject to some but if you could see what I see your opinion might change a little.
Below are some close up pictures taken with my scope with notes included. I hope these will give you a better idea of the things I see and understand the reason I started this thread. I do understand what everyone previously commented but in my eyes it just doesn't add up. The coin weighs exactly what it should so that tells me that no metal has been removed and after looking at it several times under magnification I cannot find evidence of any metal being moved besides the contact marks that normally occur on a circulated coin. Sorry about so many pictures but it was the least I needed to show you what I've been trying to explain.
Now all you have to do is explain how Mint processes could have resulted in this. How do a collar and the rim gutters on the die fail to work on one side when they work on the other? How do you make a die do that? And die scratches are a positive on the resulting coin, not a negative. Can you get a reasonably exact feel for the diameter of the coin vs. a "good" one? If the weight is unchanged from original (official tolerance +/- 0.1g, so 2.4-2.6g), yet there is clearly not metal where some should be, we might expect the diameter to have increased a bit to give that metal somewhere to go.
I've asked myself that same question ever since I found this coin. I don't know exactly what would cause it to completely fail on one side and "partially" fail on the other (explained in post #5) which is why I am asking the experts. The "Die Scratches" that I pointed out in the previous pictures are in fact raised. Yesterday I had to take more that 60 pictures with different lighting angles while using different magnifiers to confirm that they are in fact positives. Keep in mind that those pictures were taken at 400x with an excessive amount of light and what may seem like large anomalies are in fact on a micro scale. By looking and feeling the coin it appears to have the same diameter as a good coin however the thickness is different. I pointed out in post #5 about the Reverse rim not being normal and the same height all the way around the coin. Now that you asked this question I had to go back and examine it again. The thickness of the coin is not even all around which corresponds to the rim anomaly on the Reverse. It is much thicker than a normal coin on one side and approximately the same as a normal coin on the other. Look at the picture below, the arrow points to the coin in question. Thanks,
Not to add further confusion but below are examples of some doubling that I haven't completely determined the cause of that is on every letter and date on the Obverse and on "United States of America" on the Reverse.
A die scratch would not run from the field out into the rim area because the field of the die is a high area and the portion that creates the rim is a low area. So if something scratched the surface of the die it would end at the edge of the field. More likely they are fine scratches that occurred after the damage that didn't break through the copper plating. Secondly they don't selectively plate these planchets so the entire planchet must have been plated at the time of the striking. Something had to remove that plating from the rim area. And whatever did removed the rim as well. This doesn't have to be tools it can grinding or sanding. The amount of metal removed is small enough that it is not surprising the weight is still correct. On a copper cent you can grind away the entire reverse and still be within the mint tolerance range. Thickness variations as you go around the coin are normal even for normal properly struck coins.
I agree with your analogy but the lines that I highlighted in the photos (except the ones that crosses near the date) are raised, not incuse. It took some time and very delicate testing to prove that even to myself. The scratches were on the die not on the coin. I am familiar with the plating process and yes the plating (being careful of my wording) that once was there is no longer there. My question has never been about the plating however I pointed out in several photos some "Plating Separation" to show that it was once there and that it wasn't sanded or grinded off. I have pointed out several times that this coin NEVER has had a rim which is why I posted so many pictures at 400x to show that there is no evidence of any tooling, sanding, grinding or polishing. Where the rim should be is dead flat and has the same surface texture that you would expect in the fields. I've seen many forms of metal removal over my years and even something as delicate as an extremely fine polishing compound will leave scratches that can be seen under a scope. I used the term "TOOLING" which is a Machinist term meaning any man made device which is used to remove metal, aka; sanding, grinding, buffing, polishing, etc, etc, ect... I would have to see that to believe it! The entire Reverse of a coin would roughly represent about 20% of the overall coin which would equal about .5 grams, way out of tolerance. The Spec's for a one Cent piece is 2.5 grams, the tolerance is +/- .1 gram. The tolerance is there to compensate for an error in a planchet that is a little to thin or a little to thick but it does not apply when the target weight is achieved. Yes I've seen thousands of them. I was only illustrating to another commenter when he asked "Where did the metal go?".
Even if it was an error, you've done all that work and spent all that time for some one-off thatwould be collectable by only a few. If it was a real error, you're still talking less than a dollar. One off errors don't command high premiums. Take any off center cent for example. With that said, it's damage.
Recently found a 2020 that looks exactly the same. It is odd. The coin is hardly circulated. Any new info on this if it is an error?
