While going thru a pile of assorted Jefferson Nickels, I found 2 1969 S coins with way different placement of the S. Figured you guys would know about this kind of thing. I have seen MM in different places before, but not on the same year coin. Common? Hope the pics come thru OK. Thanks for looking.
That phenomenon is not uncommon on coins prior to 19?? (I forgot the date), but prior to this date, the mint marks were added to the working dies and not like they do today where they add them to the master dies. Today, all the mint marks should be in the same location, but prior to the date (which I can't remember), the mint marks were added to each working die therefore resulting in different size mint marks, repunched mint marks, etc. What you have is not uncommon. I hope someone remembers that date. It was like 1990 or something like that.
Thanks for the quick replies guys! I didn't think they were anything special, but you never know till you ask. Appreciate the info!
In 1985 they first included the S mintmark on the model for making the master hubs for the proof coins. Between 1986 and 1990 they began doing the same thing to the models for the master hubs of the circulation coins, one denomination per year. I don't know what order they did the denominations but the cent was the last one changed over and it was in 1990. (Considering the shear number of dies that had to be mintmarks by hand you would think they would have changed the cent over FIRST.) This is also why the "Phantom D" cents started showing up in the 1990's. Rather than make three models for the cent, a S, a D, and one with no mintmark, they just made the first two. Then they would take the master hub for the D cents and make the Master dies for Denver. When they were finished they would grind the D off the master hub and then use it to make the Philadelphia Master dies. In theory the polishing the Master die and the working dies receive should have remoed any lingering traces of the grinding, but in some cases traces of the original D mintmark would still show up. This tended to happen most often on the cents in the mint sets due to their higher pressure striking. Finally the Mint began using three models and the "phantom D's" stopped. (There was even one year that the grinding traces remained strong enough that the curves crated by the spinning grinder gave the appearance of a "phantom S". But the "S" was the wrong size and in the wrong location to have come from the S master hub.)
What does that mean in terms of value? I cant pathom there being an increase but it never hurts to ask :whistle: -Shrek
To the general collector probably not any increase. To a specialist or better yet two specialists vying for the same coin in an open auction, it could be much more. But, the consensus I've seen generally is no premium at all since mintmark placement and size doesn't seem to be of particular interest for modern coinz.
I don't think they are different size, but a difference in pressure applied to each mark. One seems to be a more full-bodied mintmark and the other looks like a lighter strike. JMO
