1 Cent 1970 S Far and Near S

I found this on a foreign coin forum site. Is this reference to the small and large date?

 

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Both of those appear to be large date. If I am not mistaken, mintmarks were hand-punched into the dies up until 1990, so you will find them in various positions even for the same year.

In conclusion, the far and near "S" are not varieties. Unless I am wrong.

 

I came to the same conclusion. Sounds like the people on the forum are talking about the mintmark position in relation to the date, which can vary since the Mintmarks were hand-punched into the dies until the 90s.

 

I agree. Btw, if someone wants an interesting idea for a die study, choose any date and sort through mintmark locations and form your own advanced collection. Just think, you could be one of the very few who have a complete 1946d, (to pick a date at random), collection of mintmark punch locations! I bet you could complete such a collection for just a few dollars. To me, this is a worthy numismatic pursuit, much more so than "registry sets".

 

There was only one member indicated it was a hand punch and could be any position. I just thought it might be a variety or inrelationship to the small ad large date.

That is a great idea medoraman - should be a quick and cheap sets to put togeather. Ed

 

technically it is a variety in that every coin minted from a specific die will be different and identifiable from coins minted with the next die. What medoraman is suggesting would be the actual identifying of the die varieties for a given year. Currently this has not been done with the exception of those that also have an RPM (see coppercoins.com)

 

Yea, but how many dies were used? Does anyone know this? If not, then how could anyone possibly know when they've completed a set?

 

By researching and publishing, line most numismatic scholarship. If someone wanted a lifelong project, and to make a name for themselves, choose a series and compile all known mintmark locations. It will be done by someone someday, here is someone's chance at numismatic legacy. Right now, AFAIK, only things like key dates and expensive dd's has such information been captured and published.

 

I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea for someone who enjoys such a thing. It's basically documenting mintmark positions and possibly which dies they came from. I suppose someday there could be a market for rare mintmark positions. I personally find it to be too tedious for the reward, but that's only my opinion.

With all that said, even if someone documented the mintmark positions from a million 1946-D cents (to stay with your example), it would still be uncertain whether all the dies are accounted for (since the die count is not recorded). Records show 1946-D cents as having a mintage of 315 million.

 

I find the reward to be non-existent.

 

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I believe it's which way the 9 is pointing, to the mint mark or to the 7 in date.( My speculations of course.)

 

Well, the first to publish a standard work on such a thing will gain numismatic immortality, like Sheldon. To some, that would be attractive. Not me, but to some.

 

I thought quick and cheap but I believe this task would be mission impossible for some one like me. Ed

 

I liken documenting such minutia to cataloguing snowflakes and fingerprints. Pointless. But to each their own.

 

Well, that really is the basis of early American copper collecting. Not my bag either, but I respect those collectors who do it.

 

Complete and utter ignorance. Both examples are LARGE dates and you cannot identify the large/small coins by using the MM since they were placed on dies by hand.

 

*nods*

 

It could be done on the early coins because the mintages were lower and the number of dies was smaller.

To get an idea of the number of varieties there would be you can divide the mintage by the average die life. You have that mintage for the 1946 D cent of 315 million, and the die life of a cent die at the time was probably around half a million coins (today it is 750K to 1 M) so you could expect around 630 varieties. Compared to the 46 varieties for the 1798 cent.

 

Can an S be marked on a rim since they where done by hand ? I have 2 from diffrent years that look that way with no other S under date accept on the rim