I found another one....I think!? Still going through my change and came acrossed this 195? something S lincoln cent. I can't tell if the last number in the date was rubbed away after time or if it were never stamped in the first place. I could really use some professional advice and I know this is the place to get it. Thank you sincerely, Jamie(dzzyjme29)
There are quite a few Lincolns posted with the s mint mark that have the last digit missing in the date, my father has one 194 -s, plus he had about three where the number 7 was very weak. It is probably a grease filled die, and my theory is that since so many of these occurred at the san francisco mint a worker there had a habit of when wiping the dies of wiping the top die towards him, dragging the grease with the cloth, and filling that last digit.
Many people collect grease filled coins. The money they bring is proportional to the quality of the coin. I don't think this one is good enough to draw any interest, so it's worth about 5 cents for being a wheat cent.
I've looked at thousands of wheats, and can sometimes tell the date by the reverse. This particular strike looks like a 51-S to me, just an opinion.
From the looks of all those lines, I would think someone scratched away the 5. I have no idea why anyone would do it, though.
The odd thing is that the scratch marks appear to be raised, as if the die itself was scratched. I have a very wacky theory about this coin...much too wacky for this thread.
Why not, I'm feelin goofy... Put on your rose colored glasses and your imagination hats... Suppose that the dude punching the mintmarks made a big mistake. He punched an S on top of the upper part of the 5 ... It fits remarkably well with the various bumps on the coin... What's he gonna do? Throw out the die? Nope. He'll scratch out his mistake...it wasn't that deep, right? He winds up scratching out most of the 5.... I told you, wacky!!
