I am not seeing the difference between sm and lg date it seems to be such a minute variation that determines which.... Is there a cheat or a trick ... It's literally driving me nuts . I'm obsessed with figuring this out and I have been up all night ... Lol.. I feel like a hungover college kid who just tried cramming for an exam only to fall asleep during the testing ... Right after I wrote my name Help please
You have a large date. The best way I know is teh inside end of the nine. On a large date it is blunt and points down about 45°. On the small date it is nearly horizontal and tapered. See http://lincolncentresource.com/smalldates/1970Ssmalldate.html or if you want even more see https://www.cointalk.com/threads/1970-s-small-date.93080/
Thank you soooo much ... The conundrum has been solved. I seriously should have just posted and asked here first and avoided this headache .. Lol
The first thing I look for on these is the location of the bottom of the 7. If it looks below the 1 & 0 is is a large date: There are more diagnostics for the small date:
The 70-S small date is very tough to find in circulation, especially now. Before people started hoarding copper, the regular 70-S was very common in rolls on the west coast. I must have looked for 10+ years without finding a single one. They're much easier to find in 1970 mint/proof sets--where I have found all of mine.
I can agree with Kurt on that, I went through an original bag of 70-S cents a few years ago ( thread here someplace) and 5000 Large dates, 0 small dates I had to eventually buy one myself.
Yeah...it can be a practice in frustration. I also suspect those few SDs in circulation actually came from mint sets.
I try to remember that little doodah in the nine as: If it points to the Mint Mark, then its a Large Date. If it points to the 7, then its a small date. The shape is different, as pointed out, with the small date 9, coming to a noticeable point.