The new Coin World is reporting a Texas collector found an unc (maybe au) example of a 1969-S Doubled Die Cent in rolls he put together over the years from circulation. Kinda makes me want to start checking rolls again. Great find, but how the heck did he find an unc example in circulation? Guess it’s possible, but as unlikely as finding a 1969-s DD.
Since Coinstar began business, tens of billions of previously idle cents, some out of circulation for forty years, have been returned to commerce. I regularly find cents from the 60's with mint luster and/or great patina.
You have a good point, it is possible. But take a look at that cent, looks like a high grade ms in the pics, minimal contacts, no finger prints, etc., looks better than a pcgs ms65 1970-s small date I just bought.
Anyone have more information on the 69-s dd? Most I've read about it, the mint didn't realize it existed until it was found by collectors, which would indicate the die saw a full production run. But, the reported population, doesn't support a full run. Did the mint find and pull the die short of it's life?
What would you like to know? I know of 3 pieces. One has been sold as most know Via Heritage a few years back for 126k, it has since been sold again for MUCH less. The other two that I know of are still in the hands of the person that found them and probably will remain there for a while. Mikes was the highest grade of the three without a doubt at MS64. The one in CoinWorld will not reach that high or at least not from what I can see in the pictures. I know, should "I" find one, its gone to auction the day its found. The prices will never go higher on these coins, simply because who knows how many are going to surface in the next 5-10 years. One has to be careful with the 69 Lincolns because alot of the coins that year suffer from MD..
Yep, I have several MD's. But, I'd really like to know if the die saw a full run, which would indicate there are a lot of them out there somewhere.
No, it was apparently a halted run, as when they appeared, they were originally taken by Secret Service as more counterfeits like the 1969 double die produced by Mort Goodman. They were later returned as genuine. One theory is that the mint had told the Secret Service that they had removed any real ones ( faulty) from the bin after noticing the doubling. Obviously they missed a few. How many? no one really knows.
That makes since, based on the known population. So darn, guess I'm not going to waste a lot of time looking for a needle in a haystack, since there apparently isn't a large undiscovered quantity out there.
That is very cool that somebody found one of those! Seems as though everywhere I look something new is being found.
Cool. A lot of varieties found are very high grade. There are many reasons this might be true. I suspect that in many cases the coin was discovered and set aside but either the owner died or forgot why he set it aside. Antime someone takes recent issue coins into a coin shop they are invariably told to just spend them. Also there is a chasnce each time a coin changes hands that the new owner will recognize it and set it aside. It only stands to reason that those not set aside would have on average changed hands much less often. Pennies don't normally travel very fatr from where they were released since they have no value at all now days (negative value really). This means there are lots of very lightly circulated cents around. BU rolls get spent if there are problems and this coin might have been in a recently spent roll.
