1955 DDO Lincoln Cent

@paddyman98
darn, I was going to do a nuclear bid

 

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Thanks, I'm still learning.

 

So am I..... I knew about the condition, but trying to prove what was bad about this one made me delve deeper both online and with the books I have. Unfortunately I have not figured out exactly everything that is off on this, but now I have more in my head of what to look for.

Keep at it and if you are into lincoln cents or errors, there is a lot of material that is available.

 

The coin is as phony as a $3.00 bill and a counterfeiters interpretation of what they "think" the coin would look like.

The 1955/55 is doubled across the entire obverse including Lincolns profile. Not just the lettering.

This piece simply does not have that doubling. Look at the lips which s/b be obviously doubled? Nothing.

 

check this out
https://www.cointalk.com/showcase/my-1909-lincoln-cents.97/

 

Even the fakes that look good, the reverse is always lined up correctly.
There is a 10% counterclockwise die rotation on all the 1955 DD reverses,
as well as a die break marker.
From the Lincoln Cent Resource, and they also quote Cherry Pickers Guide:
"Check for two faint
die scratches leading downward from
the left bar of the T in Cent to establish
authenticity" -The CherryPickers Guide
Fourth Edition Vol. 1 pg. 122. The
reverse is also slightly rotated
counterclockwise about 10 deg.

Everyone is so concerned about the obverse of this coin, but the way to tell if it is fake is from the reverse.

I am not including the OP which is like a candy coin wrapped in tin foil,
but on fakes that actually look real.

 

I bid $100 Zimbabwe

 

What a waste of $99 Zimbabwe.

 

I like that the president is smiling at us.

 

The coin looks a little rough. Years ago - 50's, I found a few and of course I saved them. They were unc. I would think that all were saved by someone and not left in circulation. But maybe not.

 

Here is my take on this, and I welcome any corrections or additional details others more knowledgeable than I can provide.

According to the bits I have read, the 1955 ddo1 had one run basically, with an estimated 20-24 thousand produced. The result of one die pair. Supposedly before any employee found this happening, thousands that had been produced were already mixed in with others produced by different dies. A decision was made, possibly based on thinking a cent is a cent, and it at the time would just be another cent, as well as the time and cost to pull and destroy the combined good/bad cents to prevent them from reaching the public was more than someone wanted to be responsible for.

So the decision was made not to worry about the coins produced and already mixed in with others from different dies, and to pull the bad die. Remember that at the time, error coins were not something the public was really focused on. This cent being released kind of started the ball rolling on that. It seems presumed that the coins produced but not mixed in yet were then mixed and let go to the public, but I have not found anything that says that or that says those were held back and destroyed. So that last group of coins produced may lower the total released number... which in my mind might result in estimates of maybe 3-4 up to 14 thousand surviving. The tricky part is accounting for upwards of 10 thousand or more not showing up as these were so visibly recognizable to anyone who even would glance at the obverse. They were generally held on to at that moment, so it would be expected that any not pulled might be the result of the consumer not looking at his coins, and when spending them also not seeing the obverse, etc.... Or, dropping one without noticing and by the time it was found, if that, had been so decimated. This all happened at a time when collecting pennies and dimes was pretty popular. So that is a lot of coins to never show up if they were released.

One primary place these were found was in cigarette cellophane packs. Back in the fifties, it was really common to see cigarette machines, and within the economics of the times, a cent held more value so people expected to be charged in odd cents like the 23 cents it cost for a pack dispensed in a machine. But the machines were not able to receive or dispense pennies. It would be more likely the consumer would find a quarter and buy the pack with that. Each pack then had the change in the pack, and that left it up to the consumer to either pocket the change or, perhaps, if the person buying the pack was not concerned with keeping the change and did not bother with it, inadvertently leaving them in to be trashed. That possibility would work as long as the cents were not yet advertised as existing, the customers of the cigarettes were not realizing were the source was, and to that effect, enough mixing of non-doubled die cents in with the change provided that it was able to have this scenario play out. Also this would suppose that people loading the cents into a machine to go into the packs did not notice, and if the cents were sufficiently mixed with good ones would be at least plausible...

Also I am considering that perhaps quite a few never made it to circulation (released by the feds) but were with groups of coins not needed and thus remained in storage, and possibly still remain in storage because when it came time to release more coins, newer stock came physically before that. Or there could be more reasons, but I don't have enough info on this part of production, recalls, etc. All I know is that they first appeared in late 1955, and I don't know even which month they were produced in. They first supposedly traded for a quarter or so, so imagine at first, the rarity was not realized.

So where are all those other ones???? Did the fed actually destroy a huge number of cents not released in this and other years? Or with cents at least do mintages pretty much reflect the number needed for actual circulation?

 

Still reminds me of my favorite dealer story. I was told he bought something in 1955 as a kid and got a penny that looked odd. He asked the counterman and was told "Eh...they probably made all of them this year looking like that".

 

When the error was discovered they were destroyed. (25,000 or so?) The other 20,000 had already shipped.

 

Likely picked out of the garbage behind the fake producing hut in China.