Just happened to have 3 of the same mint mark and date next to each other and I noticed how different all three of these mint marks look. One looks super fat, one looks super skinny, and the last one almost looks perfect. But the first one looks rpm but there was no listings for rpm, the first one also looks different because it's missing the serif on the top if you compare it with the last coin. But the bottom serif on the mint mark for the first coin looks But the middle one, I feel stands out too much not to ask about.
As you know mintmarks were hand-punched in this year. When you look at the placement it show that these three coins come from different dies. photo 1&2 are close to the same and #3 is lower. And I would say they are all from different "Die Stages" as the bottom one looks like an "Early DS" and the 2nd one looks to be a "Late DS", without inspecting the rest of the design for verification.
What PandG said... the US Mint hand punched the dies (not the coins) until 1989 (it was '89 I believe, if not it was thereabouts).
I'm glad you pointed that out because there was once a time not too long ago that I understood that the mint marks were hand punched on each and every coin. Lol Thanks everyone
