Hi. I was wondering if this would be a form of doubling or if this is normal wear? And the number 8 looks a little funky also. Thanks.
Looks like normal die deterioration doubling. Worthless doubling. You will find this issue on thousands of coins. Not related to true Doubled Die varieties.
Here is a the classic among doubled die coins, the 1955 doubled die obverse cent. Only the obverse is doubled. The reverse is normal. How could this have happened? Without getting too technical, here's how the die that produced this coin was made. The dies that make coins are called working dies. They strike the coin blank (planchet) with great force. Believe it or not it takes 40 tons of pressure to strike a bronze cent. Working dies are made from a hub. A hub looks like the finished coin. The die has an image on it that is the mirror image of the finished coin. To make a die, the blank die face is struck multiple times with the hub. It usually takes three blows from the hub to sink the die. Each on of those strikes from the hub must be in perfect alignment. It it’s not, the die will end up with doubled devices as you see on this 1955 cent. The mint takes a great effort to avoid issuing coins like this. They want to issue a near perfect product. In 1955, an estimated 20 to 40 thousand of these doubled die cents were made. They were mixed in a cent bags before the error was detected. Rather that going though all of those coins, the mint decided to issue them anyway. Many of them cropped up in New England when sharp eyed collectors spotted them. At first this coin sold for only 35 cents or so. But then it caught fire with collectors and the price increased. The 1955 Doubled Die Cent was listed in The Red Book for the first time in 1959. The price at that time was $50.00 in Uncirculated condition. Today, if you can find a virtually perfect Mint State piece with its full red mint color (MS-66, Red, it can sell for $85,000. The coin at the top of this post, which grades AU-58 (Almost Uncirculated 58) is worth about $1,600. That might be more than you wanted to know, but perhaps you find it interesting. Here is an Abraham Lincoln token from the Civil War era and the die that was used to strike it.
Welcome to CT @Nicole Marie. In case you haven't already ran across these sites, you might find them interesting and a good reference to check on any questions you might have. http://www.doubleddie.com/144801.html http://www.error-ref.com Good luck on your search. PS, Thank you for posting Full Image. Makes it a bit easier on us older people. LOL
Thanks for the info. I just surfed the whole damned internet library for my town and they got nothing
Buy a copy on eBay. Under $20 new. A copy from ten years ago for $5 shipped should get you a good reference to start
