Hi. I'm a collector in Norway that decided to expand my collection to include some US coins as well. Started with 1 cents and when sorting the dates and mint mark I came upon this one that has a 6 in the date that looks more like a "G" ( see pics) My question is if this is how the 1956 D all look like? Or should I look for a 1956 with a normal "6" in the date? I don't collect variants so I am most interested in knowing if the 1956 D's should have a "6" looking the one I got or if this is a damaged coin. Some Google searching tells me that I most likely have a damaged coin since the 1956 D I find pictures of seems to have a normal "6". If that is the case, is this a variant or just somebody that had too much spare time on his hands? Thank you
No, that is not how the six is supposed to look. That particular coin has PDM. PMD = Post Minting Damage.
Welcome to the neighborhood! As others have said, it's PMD. It doesn't take much of a hit to move the metal around. Chris
Thanks for the information. I'll throw this in my "damaged coins" bin and hope I have another 1956 D amongst my unsorted pennies. Still a huge pile to search through and I believe 1956 D is not the date I'll be missing when I'm done
It was probably done by either a vending machine (old gumball 1 cent machines) or coin wrapper damaged. But I'm leaning to the vending machine issue. They way I can tell if it is these two is that the device is damaged parallel to the rim. So an event happened that damaged this coin.