I just had a quick question that I can't seem to find an answer to. My wife recently brought me a 2000 D US cent that she had recieved in change. This coin was extremly thin. I measured a few others with my micrometer that were all 0.06", the one she found was .03" with a very weak strike on both sides. What my question is, is this an error or just something that sometimes happens. Thanks for any info.
I have a similar coin. Mine is a 1944 Wheatie. Anyhow, Ive always thought it to be a split before strike. Which is when the planchet splits in half before the coin is struck. Which would have weak details on both sides. A split after strike would result in little to no details on one side and normal details on the other. Anyhow, thats my best guess but I could be wrong, I know very little about errors
Errors ARE things that just sometimes happen....... Need more info. Is it attracted to a magnet? The US mint produces coins for some other countries.Its possible that your cent was struck on a planchet meant for another countries' coin.
It would be an error, IF it is genuine and IF it is underweight. Inspection and measurements of the edge are unreliable, as this varies according to striking pressure.
The mint has not struck coins for other countries since 1984 (Except the 2 Kronor piece for Iceland in the Lief Ericson set.) Being struck on a foreign planchet is still a slight possibility though since the firms that supply the US Mint with planchets also supply other mints as well. What we really need are pictures and WEIGHT.
reply with pic Sorry I took so long to get back to everybody. I was caught out of town for a few days. I did weigh the cent and it is slightly lighter than its counterparts. I weighed five other coins and they all weighed 2.61 to 2.65 grams by my scale. The coin in question weighed 2.48 grams. I don't know if this is enough weight difference to make a difference. I'm not sure what the margin of error in the weight of a one cent coin is. As you can see by the pics the strike appears to be extremely weak. I wish that I could get a clear pic of the side to show the difference but every time that I try all I can come up with is a blurry mess that doesn't show much of anything. Thanks everyone for your help and opinions and let me know what you would do with this coin.
Your weights for the normal cents are way off. A copper-plated zinc cent should weigh 2.5 grams. Your "error" coin looks entirely normal. All of the design is present.
Why? It's either a grease-filled die strike, or simply a weak one; neither of which are considered errors, or add any premium value.
