Is this a very common doubling for a 1972 s? Should I grade this coin or just save it for my collection.
@Collecting Nut is right, not worth the grading costs. Apart from assessing in hand, this coin looks to be MS61RED. From NumisMedia/FMV it calculates out to be worth somewhere around $3.16. The doubling is discounted because of the commonality, so you have to treat it like any other normal coin, and this value falls way short of slabbing efforts. It is still a great coin that has survived the ravages of time and grimy fingers so you should keep it to show your friends what a true doubled die really is and what it looks like. Millions of Americans don’t have any idea what a doubled die is…imo…Spark
There exists a previous post of this coin by ARBIE on June 28, a day before this post. That post was in the “Error Coins” forum. This post was the next day with the Title corrected in “What’s it Worth” forum. The June 28th post shows the N/IN (of IGWT) to have the common doubling known for 1972-S of Master Die Doubling, specifically, WMDO-001 from Wexler. Your confusion is understandable, but you will see immediately if you look at the previous post…hope this is helpful…Spark
From what I have read, and this was years ago, there was an old guy at the mint who claimed he'd found a way to make dies faster. That might well have been true, but his method of using the working hubs to sink the coinage dies frequently resulted in doubled dies. Most of them were very minor, and are not something that would interest many collectors. As I've said before, if you need a 10X glass or a microscope to see it, it doesn't amount to much in my opinion. Here is an example of the piece that collectors do want.
