I saw that someone was talking about this a few weeks ago....I found an article last night in a book that talks about even though it is graded by ANACS its fake----the graders said that they didn't remember at the time that a cent from 1959 wasn't ment to have Wheat ears on the back and just graded it.....then later it was brought to their mind and they looked it over again and it was a fake......the owner will not give back the paper with the grade on it (It wasn't put in a slab). I find that really neat....any ideas on if it is a real story or fake? Speedy
http://www.coinfacts.com/small_cents/lincoln_cents/wheat_ear_cents/1959d_one_cent_wheat_ears.htm Here's a story about it at coinfacts.com.
http://coinworld.com/News/070802/News-1.asp Apparently the Secret Service thinks it's real, or at least that can't confirm that it is counterfeit.
I've never heard the ANACS grading it story, but it is possible. However, those old certs don't hold much weight anymore. I've owned several coins with the old ANACS certs where their opinion on the PF/MS status was wrong - including some VERY high dollar coins. As for the 1959-D 1c, when you've got some of the best coin minds in the history of numismatics doubting the coin and you've got lawyers for the owner of the coin telling the doubters to keep quiet, that says a lot.
I heard, (word of mouth somewhere, so probably means nothing), that the grader(s) saw it and it just didn't dawn on them that 1959 is supposed to be Lincoln Memorial Rev because they were all laughing about how some collector or dealer must be goofing around by sending in such a common date/common grade cent. In the telling I heard though coin was slabbed. Off topic but, I have never actually seen one of the old Anacs grading certificates. Just out of curiousity, how exactly did you know the coin you were looking at went with the certificate? Couldn't people send in an MS65 quality coin, get the cert, then offer a scrubbed up circulated coin with the MS65 cert to someone who didn't know any better? Or were the certificates mostly for your own use if you wanted a professional opinion?
I like that LINK to the story about that coin. With all the wierd error coins appearing lately I wouldn't doubt that that one is for real.
The certs have pictures of both sides of the coin. You could easily compare the coin to the pictures to see if it matched.
