Lustrous 88D

I have always said that it would be fun to get a few coins graded, still can't pry the money out of the budget. I would rather buy another couple of coins.

 

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What when you get them they turn bad fast? Or just a purist of what a coin should be? A solid planchet.

 

Did you look at PCGS's poster child for RD?
Here is another photo, further from the lens about as far as I can get before it get out of focus. And hard to light.
On luster alone it should grade higher than MS65.

 

@Pickin and Grinin

This?
https://www.pcgs.com/coinfacts/coin/1988-d-1c-rd/3105

If so, that MS 68 resembles your coin. Not the most attractive example to be the poster for a 68 grade. It's not ugly but I think the grade was optimistic. I'm also not sure that's a fully "RD" coin. The other two examples of 68s are better for the grade.

 

Have you ever seen one in hand? I do get them frequently. I think that the PCGS one only made the 68 status was because of the luster., There were a couple other wow coins in these rolls. Let me see if I can bring out a few 88D's.

 

I don't recall seeing one as extreme as your example or the PCGS one.
I'm not so sure that luster was the reason for the grade as I'd think the other two pictured have luster just as strong (and you see strong luster in MS 65, so luster alone can't push it to a 68).

 

I think it hits on all merits.

Strike- Above average strike for the year- great details

Luster- Blazing, the blisters send light everywhere, the cartwheel is amazing.

Eye appeal- A+ in my head, a blistered coin that shows zero split plating.

Contact- Between both sides only a few contact marks, that you have to look for.

 

well, they say it is an error. that opens up a new playing field for sales, lol

 

Nope. When you get right down to it this is a defective planchet with some aspects of eye appeal but should TPG grade a “Details- plating blisters” on the label, IMO. The blisters are the opposite of what is applied criteria for grading.

Save whatever you like for whatever reason you like, just don’t delude yourself.

And there is no fallacy. Conserved Zincolns will last a long time. In the wild they disintegrate.

 

Take a look at all the coins gem and above. They all have plating blisters, yes some are minor compared to the one I have shown. But they are still there. In your stance we shouldn't grade any Plated coins?

 

As I have posted before, finding Zincolns without any defects is the harder task, from circulation or CRH, anyway.

But I will concede that well struck, good surfaced coins, minimal contact marks or other defects should be conserved/kept. Some of these types are slabbed, and kept for the rare or scarce condition they have; Mint Sets and the occasional find from circulation. For plating-blistered surfaces, it becomes the Eye of the Beholder. As you said, the degree of blistering is important.

So, addressing your 1988-D Zincoln, it looks like an outstanding coin except for the surface blistering and, in this case, the exception is the X-factor. Some will say to slab, and some won’t.

 

It's got the Chicken Pox. But I think I'd keep it, too. It's a very nice example of it.

 

I wonder if anyone has studied what role, if any, the zinc planchets contribute to the plating blisters? I recent acquired this Zinc (unplated) 1 Ore coin dated 1961. The obverse near the date shows a roughness that might make plating problematic if additional marks occur on the planchet before plating.

In the case of the US Cent, doesn't the zinc planchet get made, then plated, then run through the press? So not all the pimples might be air bubbles or maybe the plating doesn't work as well on the pimply surface and doesn't get struck out completely allowing for air pockets?

 

The US Mint found out in 1943 how horrible zinc was for coins, otherwise there would have been more than 1 year of zinc-plated steel cents. America, and other countries, experimented with zinc, aluminum and many other blended alloys over the years and if copper and nickel hadn’t become critical weapons metals in WW2 the zinc over steel coin never would have happened.

My own theory on American Zincolns relates to temperature. Zinc the metal is brittle at room temperature (Wikipedia) and the contractors had to work hard to get 8 microns of copper in place. My experience with Zincolns, especially the first 8 years, was the granular, pebbled look meant the copper temperature was not always correct. I’ll be the first to proclaim I am not an expert on how these durn things get manufactured but I have learned a thing or two over the last 60 years when I first began collecting.

My beef with Zincolns is that the Mint forgot the lessons of the past and are now doomed to repeat them. IMO…Spark

 

Nice reference and the coin shown is handsome but I was shocked at the grade being that high.

 

the 1980s DENVER are plagued with plating blisters/bubbles with the zinc changeover in 1982. take a look at the top pops RED cents on PCGS, many of them have blisters. Not so for Philly for some reason.
They get it mostly sorted out by 1991-1992. but from 1982-1990 Ds without blisters that had a strong strike, well centered, and exceptional luster just don't really exist.

take a good hard look at them on PCGS, it's basically without exception for this date range.
https://www.pcgs.com/pop/detail/cat...ern-1959-date&ccid=0&p=MS&sn=3121&pn=3&ps=100

And here is the Philly 1988 counterpart. even Denver MS69RD's during this time period have plating blisters.

Not sure why it's like that for Denver, and not Philly, but it's like that for Denver for those years. Maybe different planchet suppliers I guess, but it is a "as struck" characteristic for that period of time for Denver examples.

 

I would guess that you are correct on that one, Or and I can't find the information. The mints use presses with different tonnage to strike each denomination. 65 different presses at the Philly mint and 56 presses at the Denver mint. Maybe different presses were used to strike the coins?

 

yeah there is that possibly. Denver had Graebner MK 360 presses from 1986-2001
they both use Schuler MRH since then.

there's an altitude and air pressure difference between Philly and Denver, and there is operator differences in the settings also that could be a factor.

This was also the period of time the Denver Mint added the visitor center from 1980s until 1992 when it opened, entrance on Cherokee St. maybe....

The zinc used in the U.S. one cent coin comes from the Tennessee Valley Mines, it's a close knit group of mining companies and processors in a small area in Tennessee. just the one source. the Copper comes from Morenci mine in Arizona.
Jarden Zinc produces the cent blanks, for both Philly and Denver.

I don't think there's any "planchet production" difference both zinc and copper for both mints come from the same places, and one manufacturer of blanks, Jarden Inc. does the sheeting and plating...
However, I don't know if this was always the case, like early on the mint may have tried a couple vendors and settled on jarden in 1990-1992 for the best product and may have had a blank producer west of the Mississippi River in the early days of the Zincolns.

I haven't dug further because I'm not writing a book on it.

 

oh, and Jarden Zinc, was Alltrista Zinc Products Company, was Ball Corporation, who has had the contract to supply the blanks since the beginning. (originally Ball Brothers, makes the Mason jars and Zinc Jar lids) I don't know if anyone else actually was involved in the production of cent blanks though early on, Ball subsidiaries have had the contract since 1981.
In 1993, Alltrista Zinc Products Co. was spun off by Ball Corporation with seven other divisions to create Alltrista, which is now Jarden Corporation.
THIS may have occurred due to the low quality of the 1980s blanks, and the need for Ball to rebrand to Alltrista, then to Jarden, maybe lower quality by having too many things going on?

Still no idea why it seems Denver got the worst of the blanks through, the 80s and early 1990s. I've been trying to figure that one question out for a while, I don't find the smoking gun as to why it happened but clearly they got poorer quality or produced poorer quality, for that entire decade roughly.

I don't think it's just random chance although it can occur randomly, it was way too widespread during that 10 year period for it to just be random, and you'd of seen more of it from Philly than what occurred. Anywho. it's a conundrum that probably the mint or Jarden could answer only most likely.

 

Your 88 Philly sure shows how PL the die really were, For Denver I think the elevation change has a lot to do with it. I would imagine the mint had a surplus of planchets coming every day. I tried searching for the exact press that was used between the two different Mints. To no avail.
I did find this thread that I missed in 2017.
https://www.cointalk.com/threads/re...oining-press-to-operational-condition.294441/
@ZoidMeister