Would this be considered a "WOODIE"?

You're misremembering just a bit But yeah, I did experiment once with what was supposed to be a woodie, and yeah it did involve an eraser.

To understand one has to know the backstory, so for the sake of everyone, here goes.

People have been collecting woodies for a long, long time. And as sometimes happens when a particular coin, variety, error, whatever, becomes popular - somebody figures out a way to fake them. And I've known that for a long, long time. Anyway, one day a member posted a thread with a pic of a particular coin and asking a question much like the one that started this thread.

Various others answered in response stating their opinions, most of which agreed and said yeah the coin was a woddie. But when I saw the pics, I disagreed. My opinion was that it was a fake woodie, once manufactured by somebody. The usual debate ensued and went on for bit just like they still do. But eventually the OP, the owner of the coin, said he'd send me the coin and let me do with it whatever I wanted to make my case. So he did. And I agreed to post my own before and after pics, once I had completed my experiments. And I did.

These are the before pics, 2 sets with slightly different lighting so as to help alleviate any concerns regarding "effects of the light" if you will.














As you can see there are very straight, very regular in regard to the thickness and shape, very evenly spaced, lines on the coin - but only on the obv. There's not even a hint of lines on the rev.

Two things wrong with that. One, when you find a woodie it's more common for the lines to be somewhat uneven with slight variances in thickness and shape of the lines, and continuity as well. In other words some lines may not be continuous all the way across the coin. They may go so far and then stop, or be broken - go a ways, stop, and then pick back up again. But it's not unheard of for the lines to be straight and regular too.

Two, with a woodie it's downright unusual, almost unheard of, for the lines to be found on only 1 side of the coin. As we all know the lines are caused by impurities in the alloy mix. And when it happens those impurities are as thick as the planchet is thick - almost always. I mean a planchet isn't very thick to begin with, and when the alloy is mixed it's melted of course. So it just makes sense that if there are streaks of impurities here and there in the melted alloy they are usually going to have a given thickness. It may be this much it may be that much, but it's rarely going to be just a molecule or 2 thick. So when the coin strip is rolled out, when impurities are present they are usually going to be as thick as the planchet is. And when they are not that is what causes the irregularities and breaks in the lines we see on the coins.

I readily admit it's not impossible for the lines to only show up on 1 side of the coin, it could happen. But I myself cannot ever recall seeing one. What I had seen though is the lines be on only 1 side when somebody faked a woodie. Thus my original reasoning and opinion of the coin in question.

So what did I do when I got the coin ? Took those pictures first, then I dipped the coin - but I only dipped half of it. I did that so everyone could see the effects of the dip on the lines. My though was that if the lines were faked, they could be removed by dipping the coin. Here are the results.








As you can plainly see most of the lines disappeared, or at the very least were strongly faded. But it was only a 1 second dip so I wasn't completely surprised by this. And at that point I'd confirmed my suspicions that this was a faked woodie. I'd confirmed, in my own mind anyway, that the lines were "on the coin", not "in the coin". In other words the lines were only on the very surface of the coin because somebody put them there; as opposed to the lines being in the metal itself in the form of impurities - impurities that would have a given thickness of some kind anyway. And so you can see a better example of what I'm talking about here's a side by side comparison of the before and after obv.







So where does the eraser that Pickin and Grinin mentioned come into the story ? Well, you see how the lines on the dipped portion over by Liberty are really faint but still there ? They were exactly the same way over above the date. So I decided to add another little touch to my experiment. Mainly for the benefit of others, but also because I wanted to see if those faint traces of lines would go away with just a little extra effort. I took and ordinary pencil and used the eraser on the coin, that kinda whitish looking area just above the date. You can even see faint traces of the horizontal lines that were left behind by the eraser. And yeah, the faint traces of the lines went away. Putting the icing on the cake - for me anyway. There was no doubt that this was a faked woodie.


Now there's more to this story but what you have read above is the part that has to do what was mentioned in this thread. The other part of the story is a continuation of this simple little experiment. And I decided to make use of it.

Ya see, for years I had been telling people here on the forum stuff like this in the hope of helping them, informing them. But few were ever willing to listen, most didn't even want to listen because what I had to say quite often conflicted with their preconceived beliefs. And the existence of faked woodies was only 1 of those things. Another had to do with toning, natural toning, and just how fast natural toning actually occurred. I'd been telling them for years, (and this all happened back in 2009 by the way), but folks would never believe me. Heck, I'm still telling them - and they still won't believe me ! Big surprise there

Ya see, most folks have the idea in their heads that natural toning takes a long time, years, often even decades. So when I tell them things like - natural toning can and does occur in DAYS - wellllllllll, to say they get a little skeptical just doesn't cut it And that's why I decided to continue this little experiment.

So here ya go, more pics, of the same exact coin. Pics that were taken 3 days after I dipped the coin - 3 DAYS ! And what did I do to the coin ? Nothing, I laid it on a window sill and just left it there, for 3 days. Here's a pic.




See the difference ? If you can't, here's the day of pic again for comparison.






And here's what it looked like after 43 days.





That's an example of just how fast natural toning not only can, but does occur. It doesn't take years, it most certainly doesn't take decades.

As I have said for as long as I have been on this forum, toning begins the very instant a coin is minted. And if you dip it and remove the toning, it will begin all over again and just as quickly as it did the coin was minted.

The thing is, people simply don't notice it because their mind, their memory just isn't that accurate when it comes to color changes. But the color changes are there, the toning does occur. And if you take pictures, it's plain as day to see it.

So there ya have it Pickin and Grinin - the rest of the story


But ya know what ? I'm bettin people still won't believe me when I tell 'em things

 

Ehhhhh, maybe. But I don't think that's a woodie, I think that's just dirt in the horizontal scratches on the coin, coupled with small areas of discoloration scattered about. But like I said, maybe.

 

I think that depends, I think sometimes it would be and sometimes it wouldn't be. As with a lot of things, I believe it would be a matter of degree. Granted, these are assumptions because the only way to ever really know - you'd have to have been standing there watching the coins as they came off the press.

Why ? Because as I pointed out above toning can and does occur very, very quickly. So even if a coin was only a week old, enough toning could have occurred to make the lines easily visible. But maybe not so much at the instant it was minted.

 

Nickels are an alloy coin too so yeah, they can show streaks from impurities just like cents do. But they usually don't show up quite as often. I think that's for 3 reasons. one, the alloy mix is quite different in regard to proportions - 75/25 vs 95/5. So the mix of the alloy is probably more homogeneous, mixed better, more thoroughly in other words, and that causes any impurities to get broken up more and mixed in, hidden. Two, nickels are thicker, a good bit, so any impurities are more likely to be hidden in the middle of the planchet. And three, toning, nickels tone at a slower rate than the cents because copper is so reactive.

But is there a specific term for these nickels ? If there is I can't recall one. But hey, you can make one if ya want - call 'em zebras