Just wondering on these new lincoln pennies... I received some finally today and appears to me the A and M in America is pretty wide, they dont touch at all and the M is almost dead in the middle of the A and E is this standard for the new pennies or are these errors? I havent taken pictures yet but may sometime today if I can find my USB cable to upload to the laptop.... also see that the mint is going to sell the P and D rolls with old composition for almost $9 which seems pretty high. I was thinking they might have sold the P and D sets for about $5-7. Okay back to regularly scheduled programming.
Welcome to the forum. It may be die distortion, is the FG initials close or away from the memorial? If they are close then it is a Wide AM, if the are further form the memorial then it is a Close AM. When you are able to post some pictures I will be able to help you more.
Well the pictures I took are really cruddy. I can tell you the FG appears to be almost touching the lower right side of the memorial. I have very few pennies with the wide AM and close FG so Im thinking this has to be an error with how they were struck or how the die was made, likely going to be more common than not. Im going to have to get a bigger magnifier or jewelers loop to make the pictures look decent.
OK I'm confused. The OP mentioned that they were new cents, and that the mint will be selling rolls of them in a few days so I would assume he is talking about the new Log Cabin Lincoln cents. I doubt if you will find an FG or Memorial on these cents. And since this is a completely new design, and we haven't seen the proofs yet there is no way of knowing if the placement of the AM is the same or different from previous years.
If the cents are true to the design then a wide AM is standard. There is no FG or memorial on the new cents since Frank Gasparro didn't do the design. The initials RM and JL appear; maybe the design is a collaboration between two individuals.
Okay it was obviously late when I made that last post, these are the 2009 cents and thus no memorial or FG on the back, the two sets of initials appear to be more offset towards the middle (closer to the cabin). That is what I meant, I cannot believe I didnt even catch my own mistake but like I said it was late. Now that I looked at all the new cents that I have it appears more the standard that the A and M are decently separated thus it appears to be no error to me based upon inspection of all the ones I have (about 100 as I got two rolls from the bank finally).
The coin was designed by United States Mint Artistic Infusion Program Master Designer Richard Masters and sculpted by United States Mint Sculptor-Engraver Jim Licaretz. So now we honor the designer and the engraver. What's next, initials for the operator of the Janvier transfer engraver and the operator of the hubbing machine? What the heck, let's not leave out the press operator. That would start a new variety of collectables - a different coin for each of a dozen or so press operators.
The same is true for the obverse of the Lincoln dollar. My knowledge of the whole minting process is rather limited. Can you please explain why the designer, but not the sculptor/engraver, deserves to have his initials on the coin?
No Conder, I'm the one confused. When someone asked about Wide AM's my mind went straight too 08 and not 09. Because not many people have received any 09's it was the first thing that come to mind. It should have been a tip off when he said new lincolns. Sorry people :bow:
