Curious About a '54 "S" Cent....

I'm wondering if the mintmark is within normal parameters. I have very few wheat cents with an "S" mark and here it's almost touching the date.

 

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Each mint mark was hand punched back then. They would up all over the place. so, no, it is not that unususal to be tghagt high.

 

The mm doesnt look quite right to me.

 

I noticed that, too. It looks like lumps between both ends of the "S" and the body of the "S". I can't quite figure out what it is.

 

Ya, that and it looks too thin.

 

Standard mintmark and a standard date. These have been hyped on the bay many times.

While not common, not rare by any means. Any given die produced hundred of thousands of coins.

And yes, these guys are correct, they were hand punched and are all over the place.

 

Normal MM placement variation. I'm seeking one of these in BU to go with my 55.....been looking for years, can't seem to find one dangit.

 

I agree Jack, there is 15 S MM styles on the cent. This one is a MMS-008 Tall S first used in 1952 until 1974.

 

There may be 15 different styles but there are thousands of,

There may be 15 different styles but there are thousands of working dies with the mint-mark placed all over the area under the date - this one is not out of mint tolerance at all.

 

Here a normal 1954-S It may help?

 

Now if the mint mark was touching the date it would be a displaced mm and a error the mint mark should not be touching other elements of the coin.
JC

 

All mint marks till 1990 were hand punch. some punched high and low & east & west too.

 

Find an MS-65 plus from 1950-58 is hard thing to do.

 

Also, note the worn die effects on the numbers in the date. Kind of makes it appear as doubled almost. Also, note the Mint mark appears to be doubled slightly. Long time ago I contacted Chuck at coppercoins.com about the same placement of the mint marks. His answer was as lont as it is under the date, to the right of the shoulder, it's normal. Ever notice too how some are not straight up and down. I always wondered what they said when they did that.
I want one with the Mint Mark on top of the date. This could have been done pending what the Mint workers had for Lunch.

 

I have also talk Charles/coppercoins

I had always thought a different press operator had his or her own way of punching mint marks.

 

No

Now if the mint mark was touching the date it would be a displaced mm and a error the mint mark should not be touching other elements of the coin.
JC
No, anyplace under the date and to the right of the jacket on the bust, it don't matter much.

Now if the mint-mark was on top of an element of the date or way over in the jacket or rim it would be a varieity but it would need to be fairly spectacular to be that different.
Look, they were making thousands of dies for each year and mint-mark. The Phiiiy Mint made all the dies without any mint-mark first during this time - then shipped the several thousand each to San Francisco or Denver once there a mint technician opened the boxes of dies and applied the mint-mark with a steel punch. Sometimes it required several blows of the hammer resulting in those die varieties we so love RPM's.
Remember this is all done in reverse - that finished working die is encuse, or a negative image of the coin - the punch itself is a positive so it can make a resulting negative impression for the "D" or "S" - I'm sure it took quite a bit of skill to do it well so many thousands of times and quality control was not what it is today. That said, if the dude just got it in there it was okay - your coin is normal for the times.

 

Thank you all for the very educational responses! I have a much better understanding pertaining to the mint marks. Each post revives my interest in coin collecting that much more. I really appreciate the help from everybody!