I was asking on this coin in a different thread, but I used a bad title for the thread and I bet I lost a lot of people. I have gotten pretty good pictures. My coin is zinc colored, seems to have a "railroad" rim, and is too large (20 1/2 mm as opposed to 19 mm for a normal cent). There is also some bending of the coin. What might this be?
Now I'm getting weirded out. I just found what seems to be another example, but from Mexico. The normal coin is 23 1/2 mm, the odd one is well over 24 mm. The rim is not raised at all. The color is weird. The edge has a distinct railroad edge. I got both these coins from the same mixed lot so maybe it is not a coincidence that I got two at the same time, maybe they both came from the same person who gathered them years apart. What do you all think?
I obviously don't see what you see. A railroad rim is a coin that was struck partially outside (and partially inside) the collar. The part that was inside the collar will be the normal diameter of the coin and have reeding or a smooth edge (like the normal coin). The part that was outside the collar will mushroom out (sort of like the top of a cupcake) because the metal was not restrained by a collar. That part of the edge will have a larger diameter than the part that was in the collar giving the appearance of a railroad rim. In the attached photo (linked from www.alscoins.com) notice the flange around the rim of a Morgan Dollar Railroad Rim. I don't see a flange on your coins.
Maybe the pics don't tell the whole story. You can feel the groove with your fingers on both coins, but the cent more. On the cent, you can see a inward roundedness of the rim. On the Mexican coin, the groove shows up in the picture as a shadow. Both of these coins are significantly larger than they are supposed to be, without looking like post mint damage was applied to make them larger. I suspect that since neither of these coins are reeded, the picture of the reeded Morgan will not really be the same effect.
No it is not. I don't think you fully understand what I wrote. You really need to understand the coin-making process to understand what a railroad rim is and how it is made. I suggest you search the threads on CoinTalk and find a good explanation of what a collar is and what it does and what goes wrong when a planchet is not fully seated in the collar when the coin is struck.
Varieties are my thing, not errors, so maybe someone here can tell me if this is a railroad. I've been holding onto this and then I saw this thread. Being a Lincoln, if it was struck with a partial collar, why the reeded edge?
It was probably an encased cent. Search the threads and you will find many discussions about encased cents that have edges like yours.
Partial collars happen during the strike and not the result of the set up process. On some MAD coins the reason for the off center look is a partial collar. Same coin as the first image.
Railroad rim coins often show marks on the flange from being damaged in the counting machines. You will find the answer in your other thread. On a centered broadstrike the coin will be larger in diameter, but the coin design will still be the same size as on a normal strike.
