You know Lincoln penny's have VDB below Lincoln himself, right, not wherever your pointing in the third picture.
He is talking about the FG, for the memorial reverse. Im new to collecting but Ive looked through 100,000 coins so far and never seen that before.l
No, it was not. Look again. OP, Your coin is not without the designer's initials. As another member has already said, it's just weak.
Since there is a faint bump this wouldn't be considered a "no-FG" variety. Has to be completely absent, it was close though.
A few years ago, I searched an unopened $50 Mint bag of 1980 Lincoln cents and they all had Frank Gasparro's initials on the reverse. I guess they must have been counterfeits. Chris
The FG initials can be found on all normal memorial reverses. Yours are faint but still there. A light struck-through grease is the likely culprit. Keep up the hunt!
I don't think this is a greased die. The lines of the memorial are far too sharp to be grease filled. My Cherrypicker's is MIA right now but I believe these were caused in the same way as the '22-D's in that they were caused by die polishing. As they polished the dies it slowly ate away at the FG thus you have "weak" FG's and "no" FG's. I've seen tons of weak FG's but only own a couple good examples of no-FG's.
There is no listing in the 5th Edition of the CPG for the 69-S other than a DDO. Just because the lines of the Memorial are sharp does not mean that the missing initials can't be the result of a grease-filled die. Also, there doesn't appear to be any indication of die polishing. Chris
The listing in the CPG is for the 1969D no FG, not the S. I have found a few of the former in circulation. I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't show up in the next edition of CPG, as some people disagree with its listing as a variety, the same way that some people do not view the 1922 no D and the 3 and 3 1/2 leg Buffs as varieties either.
I figure a dealer of your esteem probably has a half dozen or so jeweler's loupes that you might be able to use to find the FG at the bottom right corner of the Lincoln Memorial.
True, but grease in such a small area without that corner being sharp seems less likely to me. JMO of course, you may certainly be correct. It appears to be a worn-ish example which would remove most other die polish indicators. I wasn't paying attention to the mm (I know, its in the thread title lol) which makes grease seem like a better answer, although no doubt other years/mm no FG's certainly exist.
