1951 D Large Cent Error?

Even new, not all cents weighed 3.11 g

 

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Why should Mr. Hoopster lean to stop belittling others? I don’t understand how leaning would change anyone’s behavior.

 

Fred my friend, you have the patience of a Saint. Hope you're staying well out yonder.

 

Maybe Fred don't want to get in on this weird contest . I can't believe I ended up in it. I can see that I'm well loved on here ... lol

 

Thanks to everyone who has responded to my post. Yes, I made a mistake and called this a large cent; which I know it is not. After the first comment, I edited the tags and body of the post; however I have not found a way to edit the title. For that I am sorry. Someone also suggested that I buy a Red Book before I buy the coin. That was a bit too abrasive of a comment. I own no less than 5 or 6 Red books. My favorite one is the hard cover signed 2006 edition 2914 of 3000 printed. I have a couple that are very old and I’m sure worth more today than many of my wheat coins! I’ve always collected wheat coins since I was young (born in 1971). They were mostly found in pocket change as a child; so I kept hundreds of them. They are all circulated. It wasn’t until my late 20’s that I even bought coins, and even then I wouldn’t pay much for them. I just bought what I liked to look at.

This past weekend I was cleaning up a drawer and found a bag of wheat pennies I saved that I had not searched and organized yet. So I asked my 10 yr old daughter to sort them and look them up in the Red Book with me. We had a blast!

In that bag she noticed this “error” coin. I had completely forgotten about it. I knew I had found it yrs ago, but never took the time to research it. So we started looking and found no known errors like this for 1951. Then we checked ebay for them and googled for common articles on this coin. That’s when we found this site. So I became a member, just to make the post. It made me wait to post... and a couple days later, here we are.

I used to work as a Laboratory & Quality Assurance Manager at a chemical Plant, so I’m familiar with grams and milligrams an decimal rounding. I no longer have access to those nice scales, but I took your advice to get the weight of this unusual coin.
I purchased a Taylor Brand scale that reads in 0.5 gm increments and allowed me to tare the tray to 0.0 gm before I started.

I took pics of every weight to help solve this mystery. I weighed the “1951 D error” and it was 3.0 gm (I’ve added two pics of the scale at 3.0 gm with the coin showing its obverse and reverse). I also show a 1982 at 2.5 gm, and a regular wheat penny at 3.0 gm.

Although the weight alone is not the only indicator; the fact that this coin’s weight is right is exciting for my daughter and I.

Your further comments are appreciated.

NOTE: please be civil with each other, my 10 yr old daughter is reading these posts too.

 

Hi Kevin , When I first saw your coin the deep brown toning was what got me to thinking it may be a real uniface coin. Folks on here are way too quick to shoot everything down and beat each other to the punch. If you coin is a real error you may have to send it to a good error expert for a in hand exam. Is there a ridge along the reverse side of the coin that looks to be a little higher that the flat field ?

 

My daughter and I have inspected the coin and there is a weak ridge, at best. Thanks for not dismissing our find. The research on this alone is very educational for us!

 

Well first off I forgot to say welcome to CT so welcome. The rim on the blank side would not necessarily have to be very noticeable for it to be a uniface coin. The weight is correct so I believe this one would be worth spending a few dollars to get it checked out. Good Luck

 

@Kevin Berg you stated that your scale has a resolution of 0.5 grams. That means the 3.0 weight on your scale could be be anywhere from 2.8 - 3.2 grams. You need better resolution before you can say your coin has normal weight of 3.11 gms

Please stop giving poor advice that will cost new members money. Did you read the details about the resolution of Mr. Berg's scale in his post? Of course not. Please explain how you concluded 3.0 grams was proof on a scale with 0.5 grams resolution.

EDIT to add: Mr. Berg, you received an answer from one of the Worlds foremost authorities on error coins in post #8. Mr Weinberg has a great deal of credibility in the numismatic community and one of the great things about forums like this is you get to learn from people like him. Hang out here and you'll learn a lot

 

thanks for the input.
Is it likely that they watched a YouTube video to alter this coin AND also altered the coin to get the patina right?

If this was altered; I would guess that it was done long ago. I also wonder why they would choose such a common mint and date, in circulated condition? Thoughts?
If I’m making altered coins, I’d use low mintage coin in higher grade condition... or there’s no much value in all the effort.

 

Kevin I noticed you said you also weighed another wheat back cent and it was 3.0 which was the same as your coin in question weighed. I have weighed many circulated wheat back cents and they all are between 2.7 and 3.1 so anywhere in this range would be normal for a circulated cent. I have never tried it but I think if someone ground away enough metal to make all evidence of a die strike disappear from a wheat back cent it would be near 2.5 or less in weight . This is because the raised rim and all the design would have to be taken off . Sometimes common sense helps a little . A few on here try to make me look like a newbie , I have been collecting coins way before most of them were even born. Maybe this is why they love me so much. lol

 

Giving people false hope just to create drama is not cool.

 

I will tell you and the rest of the nasayers what is not cool. Shooting down every coin a new member puts on here just to try to beat others to the punch is really cold hearted. Unless me or Mike Diamond or some other helpful coin person comes along and sees the thread then the coins owners probably just trashes some really good errors. Anyone can make a mistake sometimes but how many have I been wrong on and how many has the usual nasayers been wrong on? I have only been back on here because of health problems for a few months and a few CT members acts like I'm trying to hurt them by me just trying to help others.As for the uniface cent coin in this thread I'm more positive now that it is a real mint error than before since I found out the cent still weighs the identical amount as a normal one. Sir false hope is better than no hope in some cases.

 

I tried to explain why the scale the OP used doesn't have the precision to conclude that the coin weighs the same as one that's undamaged. The OP seemed to understand this. What part didn't you understand? It wasn't an opinion, it was a fact. @rascal, this is the stuff that kills the credibility of your opinions. You do a good job of helping answer the basic questions, but insisting the scale weight is proof is just ridiculous. You're not getting called out because we're mean, you're getting called out for giving misinformation to new collectors and then insisting it's correct.

BTW: I guarantee that if I post an opinion that's wrong and push it as factual, it will be jumped on so fast, your head will spin.

 

Sir by now I would say that by now every member on here can see who is right and who is wrong. But some members would rather die than to man up and say maybe they had made a mistake.You are deliberately overlooking the fact that the OP also weighed a normal undamaged cent . It came out the same weight as the uniface one. Anyway you can calm down , The coin belongs to the OP and they can do what they want to with it.

 

You are burying yourself with ignorant statements. The only foolish one is you @rascal

Just stop!

 

So you are still good with your name calling. I suppose makes you look really big among your supporters .

 

Actually the truth is supported around here and when someone regularly feeds new threads with more than suspect information. And when incorrect information is posted then they get called out for what they have said.
It seems you just like to argue especially with folks that are clearly more educated than you. This is either foolish, ignorant of the facts, or you are trolling,
Which is it @rascal

 

Trash like this is why you got on my ignore list and not worth a reply from me.

 

@rascal maybe I can walk you through the scale explanation. In the long post with the scale pics, the OPS said his scale had a resolution of 0.5 grams (it was buried so you might have missed it if you weren't looking for it). That means the number to right of the decimal point will only read 0 and 5. For weights in the cent range. It will only read 2.0, 2.5, 3.0, or 3.5 grams

Any cent that that weighs between 2.750 and 3.249 will display 3.0 on the scale (apologies to the scientists for taking some liberty with significant figures). Think about it. 2.75 grams is a lot different than 3.24 grams, yet both will read 3.0 on the OPs scale. A cent with a machined reverse could easily weigh 2.8 grams but the scale will still show 3.0.

That's why people are concerned when you say things like this are "proof". Hope this explanation helps. Members don't want to slam you. They just want to make sure new collectors get accurate information.