Hello All, I've got a customer that wants to sell his coin through my store as a consignment item, but I wanted to get it looked at by some more experienced individuals first. It appears to be a Lincoln cent that has two reverse sides, but not in the sense that it's a novelty coin. One of the sides is more like the imprint from another coin as opposed to an actual die stamp. What I need to know is whether or not this is a real error, or damage that occurred post-mint. I couldn't find anything else that was similar, just the standard grease/debris strike through errors, so I thought I'd get a general consensus on it. Thanks
Don't fall for this one. Notice that the reverse is a mirror image as well as incuse. The coin is what is called a "vise job". It is the result of two coins being pressed together in a vise, leaving the impression of one coin in another. It is worth a whopping one cent. Edited to add that the original cent is 1958 (wheat back) or prior and the impressed cent is 1959 (memorial back) or later. As a mint error, this is impossible.
Would an error like this even be possible under normal circumstances? It does seem a little unlikely to me that two coins would go through the same press twice to create this kind of imprint.