A few questions in general : From what years were mintmarks hand-stamped onto Lincoln Cents and for what reason would they change it? Also, what does the term "extra thickness on the outer devices" mean? I generally see this when referring to die varieties for the reverse of wheat cents. Also, how would one determine if a motto has "extra thickness" or just normal wear? I'm asking these questions because I am searching through thousands of wheat cents while referring to a list of varieties for each year and mintmark. One more question, keeping in mind that I am fairly new to collecting, is it possible for coins that are double dies, for example a 1936 cent, to later be stamped with either an S or a D mintmark thus making it a different variety? This last one may be a dumb question and not even be possible but I don't know the answer so take it easy on me : ) Any help on any or all of these questions is greatly appreciated!!!
yep, there are varieties know as RPM repunched mint mark. do a google search on these and you will find a full list of dates with the rpms.
It was the normal thing to do up untill the early 90's. Just to make one thing clear--they wern't hand stamped onto the coin themselves..but onto the dies. It was too much work and there was an amount of error (as we know) so having it hubbed onto the main die helped alot. Speedy
dave: In order: 1) "From what years were mintmarks hand-stamped onto Lincoln Cents and for what reason would they change it? " No years. The mintmarks were punched into the dies, never onto the individual coins. 2) "Also, what does the term "extra thickness on the outer devices" mean? " This refers to a type of doubled die. A certain class of doubled die that is noticable as extra thickness on the lettering. 3) "is it possible for coins that are double dies, for example a 1936 cent, to later be stamped with either an S or a D mintmark thus making it a different variety? " Sure, but that is called damage and destroys the coin. And, no they cannot add a mintmark in the way that you describe by 'stamping' it into the coin. That would cause the mintmark to be incused (into the coin) and not raised as it normally is. However, fakers can add mintmarks in a way that us mere mortals would find very difficult to determine.
