is this worth anything?

I know nothing about coins + I don't know the proper terms in "coin language". But I just got back in change a 1942 copper penny where the back is blank..just smooth and blank. Any value to this? Thanks anyone & everyone!...Linda

 

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You will need to show a picture of what you got there. There can be a possiblity that it was sandpapered off and therefore just worth it's copper value else it might be worth more.

Welcome to cointalk by the way

 

Linda:
Without a picture it is impossible to say. Most likely after-mint damage.
And, welcome ot the forum

 

welcome linda! a pic will help very much, like was said earlier, many things can cause what you have. with a pic we might be able to tell if it's mint made or post mint damage.

grizz

 

its probaly a blank planchet worth about $3.

 

Generally a planchet is blank because it totally missed the stamping process, but as described this one has a full obverse and no reverse, which is much rarer, and much less likely to be genuine.

 

Nope, not a blank planchet. If it were, it would be entirely blank, and have the appearance of a slug. Also, as far as I know, there are no errors with one full design and one smooth edge, with the exception after-strike lamination peels, and struck through cloth or other large objects. If it was either of those, the reverse would probably be grainy for the former, or feel like a cloth if it were the latter, and not smooth. My guess is it was either ground off because someone was bored, or hollowed out to make a secret compartment. That was done to numerous 1940's Lincoln cents, and sometimes the reverse of the secret compartment will fall away, making the coin appear as if it's an error.

Of course, as I always tell everyone, I am far from an expert, so please don't take my word as fact. I just try to help where I can!

 

hmm, i didn't know that! i thought there was blanks out there with one side blank and one side with the design on it. thanks for the info.

 

Thanks so much for your quick replies. I really appreciate it. You sound like a great group! Here's the best I could do with photos. The back looks like it has concentric circles.

 

hmmm, is something faintly still written on the coin in the bottom right hand corner?

 

we just noticed it too. I don't know about coins but doesn't it look like there was never any image there? Oh, but the faint numbers?

 

check to see if the writeing is simply a reflection off of the camera.

 

That looks distinctly like lathe lines. Notice there is no raised rim. It's been lathed off. Sorry, guy. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that's been machined after it was minted. That makes it post-mint damage.

It's my understanding -- and I'm certainly no expert -- that to have a uniface coin (a design on one side but not the other; as a mint error) requires two planchets to be struck at the same time . . . heads on one coin, tails on the other. Sorry guy, but my verdict must be PMD.

Sorry.

 

I'm looking at it with a not so good magnifying glass and it does look like there are letters. we are trying to find a loop

 

I'm so impressed with this coin knowledge! Well, my mystery seems to be solved and I will not have "fell into" a fortune! Thank you to everyone!

 

I feel guilty, being so brutal in my honesty, so I thought I'd come back and post some more.
When I was three I remember a man nick-named "Dirty Harry" (with no relationship to the titular character played by Clint Eastwood) playing a magicians trick with a (machined) silver dollar and a dime. He would swirl both around in a skillet while talking and then there would only be the dollar. As I recall -- and I have a very poor memory - and I was only 3 at the time -- his story was about inflation eating the dime. Then he would swirl the skillet again (in the opposite direction, I believe) and there would be both the dime and the dollar again. A magicians trick. Used as an analogy.

The point is, it's hard to tell from the picture of the coin, just what the purpose of the machining was. It is only obvious that someone took the time and trouble to machine it.

Sorry. No offense intended.

 

I agree with the lathe theory.

 

I can read the letters E PLURIBUS UNUM

Machined

 

definately ground off reverse.

 

how much would areal one be worth? my dealer has a 1994 D dime certified by ANACS that has a blank reverse. Its MS-66.