1959 Lincoln cent. How can i tell if this is real error?

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Your poll leaves out one important option-damage. Sorry but this coin is severely damaged, there is no error here.

 

Damaged

 

DEFDAM - Definitely Damaged!

@arturo lozano jr.
No es un error!

 

I am starting to think that people just don't know what are the definitions of mint errors. Errors happen at the mint. They are rare, despite what You Tube says.
Damage happens after. Anything that you can create yourself (like your photo) is damage. If you can take a pair of pliers, a hammer, run the coin over with your car
it's not an error. It's damage. Do you believe your coin left the mint in this condition? Haven't you ever seen coins that have been beat up like this before? Is this the first time you have ever seen a coin in this condition?

 

One of the main things in defining an error is to try and imagine where in the minting process it could occur. Don't try and get complicated, just think they punched out a round, put it in a press and made the coin.

 

i sometimes believe that the majority of people have never ever looked at their change until they see a u tube vid that says "this penny can make you rich!"...

 

This will get worse as we become increasingly cashless and coins (and notes) become an oddity for folks.

 

Starting to think? Where have you been for the last 10+ years?

Chris

 

EXCUSE ME FOR ALL THOSE COIN EXOERTS OUT THERE. THOUGHT THAT WAS WUT THIS FORUM WAS FOR? HAVE A QUESTION AND I WILL ASK IT? IF I WERE LOOKING FIR SOME PROFIT I WOULD ACTUALLY POST A BIG BULLITON FOR EVERYONE TO BUY MY "DAMAGE" COINS...

 

If you ever expect to get any questions answered here, lower your voice! Learning to spell would help too

 

You asked 'Error or Not'?

We replied in the first three posts
that it's damaged.

I have the same thoughts as the posts
after mine - are coins that rare nowadays
in circulation that folks can't look at a
coin like that and know, just know, that
it's badly damaged?

Please continue to post here, but understand
that we see this every single day, day in and
day out - it's like picking up a rock in your
garden and asking "Is this a Moon Rock?"

 

To be fair, in the title he did also ask how he could tell if it was an error.

The only real way to answer that is "Learn as much as you can about the minting process and how coins are made." Then you can look at the subject coin and determine if it could be made somewhere in the manufacturing process. If you can't, then chances are that it is NOT an error.

For example the OP coin has rims are the way around except in the mangled area over WE TRUST. Now the rim is formed during the strike while the planchet is IN the collar. The hole in the collar is round, so the coin must have come out of the coin round. It is not round now, and the area over WE TRUST extends out further than normal, so it MUST have been damaged after it left the press. That makes it Post Strike Damage (PSD) not an error.

 

My brother in law brought me a damaged quarter wondering if it was an error. I told him no and flipped it over and found it was off struck. So moral of the story is always look past the damage.