Newbie here.. Help please with odd Indian Pennies Hi all. I thought it would be fun to research some old coins that I've had lying around... I have several, but two have caught my interest that I'm hoping someone can help with. Pics are being taken through the plastic & with a 10X mini magnifier: 1903 Indian penny - This one has always been interesting to me b/c it looks like the indian has a fork going into his mouth. The coin looks very textured... Is it an error coin or just one that got in contact with a chemical at some point? The mark looks copperish I guess and the "fork" is upraised like the rest of the print. It's been kept in plastic for at least 33 yrs. If you guys think it's fine to open it, I will do so to get a better pic. Thanks for any assistance you can offer!
Should I open the plastic? These were the best that I was able to get with it on. I just didn't know if opening them was a good idea or not.
No problem, I'll do that later this evening. Should I also try to clean off the 1903 one with soapy water since it looks like there are greenish/blue spots?
Cleaning coins, especially valuable ones is always a very bad idea. They'll lose most, if not all of their value if you were to do that
I don't know if you can see it in these pics, but the letters on the back look like someone took a soldering iron to it. There are also random upraised things, such as under the N or to the right of the feathers, right before the word "OF". I also wasn't sure if the split should be there on the neck on the front of the coin. Do you think it's an error coin or just a coin that came into contact with a bunch of chemicals? I have several of these that were given to me when I was born, but I have no info on them.
