Is this a 1980-D Circulated Capped Die Lincoln Cent? It shows circulation wear but the obverse wear does not appear to be a drier coin. It is copper and weighs 3.01g. Tell me what you think.
1) If it was a dryer coin, both sides would be effected. 2) could be a very late die state capped die. Fred will say for sure.
The reverse shows a late die state. The obverse was mechanically altered outside the mint, probably by a buffing wheel.
That obv. has been buffed/etc. .....and as Mike also said, the reverse die was well-used when this coin was struck. Not an error
I run across these pretty much every time I take a nice long walk throughout the city of San Francisco. Coins find their way onto the city streets. The coins happen to fall on sticky tar in the street, usually where city workers just finished installing sensors in the road. The city workers will cut into the street to install the sensors and then use a really sticky liquid tar like substance to seal up the cuts. I see coins stuck in such areas all the time. The side of the coin that is face-up gets run over by hundreds/thousands of vehicle tires 24/7 365 days a year. After six or more months of constantly being run over by rubber vehicle tires, the side of the coin facing up looks like the coin the OP posted. Then, someone like me, comes along and when there is no traffic, may decide to pry the coin out of the tar with a sharp object. The side of the coin that was in the tar doesn't show much wear. This coin posted above was obviously a lucky penny, heads-up. Basically like this:
