1909-S Lincoln Cent Alpha Testing

:::eating popcorn:::

Nope, farmer! Keep going! This is great!

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Overlaid my tracing of “1909” over “1910”. The results were not exactly what I was expecting. It is commonly accepted on Lincoln Cents that the “19” are design elements of the galvano and therefore transferred to the coin series Foundation Hub during the reduction process. Therefore I was expecting these two design elements would remain consistent going from 1909 to 1910 but this is not the case. The “1” in “19” in 1910 appears to be significantly larger in 1910 than 1909. When the “10” was engraved into the Master Die for 1910 was additional engraving done on the “1” of “19” to make it larger?

 

Overlay of 1909. 1910 over 1911. The "19" appears very consistent going from 1910 to 1911.

 

Back to 1909-S VDB. Ebay provided four diagnostic photos for the coin. Using the CAD drawings their four dies matched the four dies of PCGS.

 

Found four diagnostic photos for the coin. Using the CAD drawings their four dies matched the four dies of PCGS.

 

Well we have kinda gone full circle. Yes I am using CAD but CAD is not necessary. You can accomplish the same using the following.


All you have to do is draw eight lines, take six measurements and add a little math. Emulated drawings are below for the purpose of providing visual ques. All eight lines are parallel and perpendicular to each other. I'll give you the measurements and math in a later post.

 

Don't think the emulated images came through correctly. Here they are.

 

Bump

It is just a matter of measuring to determine the relative coordinates of four points on a graph. When determining relative coordinates you have to have a scale. For the purposes of determining these coordinates I have chosen the width of the "9" in the date as my scale. Although I do not know the actual width it always remains consistent and equal to its width no matter what size image of a coin you are graphing. Since the actual width is unknown I have assigned it a value of 100 or in others words 100%.

 

Wouldn't you be better-off using a center-point in the numeral's lines as a starting point for determining the unknown variable (actual size)? It seems, at such a small scale, by using the edge of '9' as the base as the die wears the numbers will grow marginally larger. The difference might be nominal to the point of not mattering, but just a thought.

 

You are correct die wear, circulation wear on the coin itself and even quality of the actual image being analyzed are all factors that will produce some deviation and can certainly be when analyzing an image in CAD by analyzing spacing between digits, angles and etc. But my thoughts are this would be hard for a person to emulate using only a printed image then drawing and measuring the graph using a pencil and square.

 

Does this look like an authentic S-VDB?
Lance.

 

Here it is with a legit S-VDB.
Lance.

 

The interesting story (I think) behind this modest coin, is the grade decisions from PCGS and NGC.

Guesses?
Lance.

 

XF45 and XF details - questionable color.

 

I love rlm's guesses on Lincolns. The man is prescient.

In this case both TPG's made the same call.
Lance.

 

AU (barely) details

The smashed MM makes it tough - that die chip is a very important diagnostic. Can you see ANY remnant of it? They'd have to find other markers. The pictures make it look like an old cleaning and it retoned? The blackish area near the MM is questionable, could be from many causes of course but it gives me pause - because it could also indicate the coin was heated in that area to aid in the application of a MM. Based on the MM position and limited pictures...and knowing lance (LOL), it's probably genuine.

 

Although it doesn't exactly hit the target of my overlay - it is just to close to confirm as counterfeit.

 

Might as well add this overlay of the coin while we are at it.