Apologies in advance if my description is incorrect or poorly phrased. I didn’t sleep in a Holiday Inn and am not an error coin collector. I bought my youngest son $25.00 worth of penny’s and we spent about 2 hours pulling out the pre-1982 ones, looking for wheat pennies and any other interesting things that can be found in 2,500 penny’s. We actually had fun with it, found 15 or so wheat penny’s and almost $6.00 in copper penny’s. He actually found this interesting 1982 penny that looks like a possible die crack or something like that. I don’t think it was a man made error because of the miss-shaped 9 and there are no pressure marks on the reverse of the coin. But… I am by no means a error coin expert or even a novice for that matter. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated because this is the start of my youngest son’s coin collecting. He actually shares my enjoyment for coins and their history, beauty and condition. Unlike my other sons who their first question is always “What’s it worth?” Thank you again for your thoughts and have a great week.
I'll take a wild guess and say that the metal was moved off the 9 due to some hit or hits the coin took, possibly from other coins it was mixed in with. It doesn't look at all like any error that has been reported to be mint done. There is no reason to suspect that the die that created this was messed up in this fashion. Welcome to CT, and I hope that you and your son have lots of fun looking through coins. You never know what you will find.
Thanx Kasia for your thoughts and that was my first impression too. My only question is what could cause the pressure required to do that? The blemish on the tail of the 9 seems to be almost pushed or even like a small glob. I don’t think it was flattened because the extra mass has positive shape to it. If this was a bag or circulation error, I would not expect such fine definition at the out-side parameter of the 9. Not sure what would cause the crease in the 8. What ever it was, it had to have been very, very small with a defined edge and under some serious pressure. Thanx again for your time and consideration.
It doesn't take much. Copper is very malleable. You'll see all kinds of distorted letters and dates on copper cents. Most are caused by coin rolling/wrapping machines.
although I have never seen a coin exactly like this one , the 9 and 8 in the date appears to have small die chips on them.
This anomoly doesn't resemble a die crack in anyway shape-or-form. The date took a hit, as ikandiggit already said. Extremely common for crimping machines to create obscured date digits on coins (especially Copper-composed coins). PMD. -Brian
What is the weight of this coin. It also looks like a small date. It could be a bubble or a die break/chip.
Hi Rocker, sorry it took so long to get back to everyone. The best I could tell, it's a little over 3 grams. Keep in mind this was done off a digital kitchen scale, but by no means was it a triple beam accuracy.
The picture is a little fuzzy but from what I see and by the weight of the coin I'd say a die chip with post mint damage to the eight.