Hello all, I ran across this cent the other day. The reverse is a memorial cent. The obverse -- well there isn't one. If a cent was clad I'd say the obverse separated from the rest of the coin -- and took the 'innards' with it. I guess the obverse was milled out of the coin, sure would like to know why. Anyone have any other ideas? Thanks Jim
Post mint damage looks like somebody did that ,and was atempting to put another cent in there for a rotated die or some other valuable fake and just said the heck with it why bother.Possible trying to duplicate a wide or a close AM I have seen fakes like that Jazzcoins Joe
I agree. On the revesre side is it a 'close AM' or 'wide A M'? Just guessing : a 1992-P 'close AM' would astound everyone or a 1993-p or D 'wide A M' would cause many eyebrows to raise sky high too. It is fun to guess what the intent was for milling out that cent.
I second that! Also, weigh the coin and post the weight here. A pre-1982 Lincoln Cent should weigh 3.11 grams and a post-1982 Cent should weigh 2.5 grams. If it weighs close to 3.11 grams, then it is a Copper cent and if the latter, then it is probably Copper plated Zinc. The main thing is to determine if the Cent is Copper or Copper plated Zinc which would help determine if the Obverse is missing because it was not struck or if someone ground or sanded the Obverse details away. Also, could you provide a closeup of the Obverse side and crop out any background?? This would help more in an assessment! Frank
Thanks to all for the welcome to the forum. :hail: A couple of things regarding this coin. - there is not a blank planchet where the obverse should be. It is as if someone took the coin and milled the obverse out, leaving the rim entirely intact. For example, if I wanted to I could poor water into what's remaining of the obverse side of the coin and it would be contained by the rim. (Hope that makes sense?) - the surface of the obverse side, inside the rim, very smooth and silvery shiney. It is not copper colored. - the coin as is weighs 2 grams. I'm not sure that is relevant since a large portion of the coin is milled out. The idea that someone was trying to fabricate a 'new' coin did not occur to me. But looking at the coin in that light it makes pretty good sense. Well it's an interesting conversation piece if nothing else. Thanks again for all replies. Jim
mpbird, I thought that you wanted our opinion as to whether the missing Obverse details were done at the Mint or Post-Mint (man-made manipulation)! My fault for not reading your post better! To answer your original question, who knows the reason why! You would have to know the person that milled out the Obverse of the coin to know, that is if they were willing to devulge the reason. They may have been experimenting on ways to mill out the details on a coin to make it appear as an error or just goofing around. As they say, "idle minds and hands make for idle work or play". Frank
I would have to say it is pre-1983, because if someone took off the top layer on new penny, then you would see the zinc layer below.
I am almost sure that it was someone making a coin similar to a magician's double headed or double tailed coins. The key is to use a lathe or mill to machine out the one side of the coin exactly on the inside edge of the rim leaving the "cup" you mention. Then another coin is machined to remove the same area, leaving just the obverse from the inside edge of the rim. If you are good, the "cut" will be nearly invisible in the shadow of the rim when you put them together. And as said above you could change one side to produce a "mule" of sorts. Look for 1958 cents with memorial backs and 1959 cents with wheat backs. Jim
This is the cent side of a cent/dime magicians coin. Since the inside is silvery it was done with a copper plated zinc cent, and even after the entire obverse and part of the interior of the cent has been removed, it has only lost .5 grams in weight.
Like Conder said, it's a part of a magic trick. The cent is lifted off of the dime with a magnet, thus revealing the dime that the coin has been 'magically' changed into. It's a $5-$10 magic trick. My son has a few of them.
