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Message:: [QUOTE="Howard Black, post: 4365522, member: 97119"]I just found one, not quite as nice condition as this one, and not as much of the clash marking visible on the obverse (the reverse looks about the same),but, the "bar" behind Lincoln's neck is much more prominent -- a lot deeper (actually higher, I guess). I was going through a box of pennies my wife picked up at the bank today, giving a "first pass once-over/rough sort" with my loupe, and when I saw this, my first thought was "Wow, that's the strangest plating blister I've ever seen!" -- followed by "What kind of PMD could cause that?" (when I concluded that a plating blister would not have such straight lines) -- followed by, "Is this a vice-job?" (after I saw that it had an impression of the memorial on the obv.) So, I "looked harder" and concluded that it wasn't a vice job, based on the overall appearance (including the marks being on the fields rather than the (higher relief than field) devices and so forth. Also, mine has a brassy color rather than the standard "red cent" appearance. I've been running into quite a few of those lately (see below). As an aside, for the past couple of weeks I've been finding a lot of interesting coins in these penny boxes -- some of which I attribute to collection dumps, some of which I attribute to the supplier (Brinks and/or Fed Reserve branch) having to dig really deep to meet the demand for "hard cash." For whatever reason, there seems to be a huge demand for pennies. Personally I am of the opinion that the cent (and nickel) are on borrowed time, and the bill has come due. I do not expect the Mint to resume striking those two products. Around the time my late father was born (about the turn of the previous century) roughly three pennies had the value of one dollar today. Somehow, people managed to get by without having a coin denominated in a value lower than a third of a (today) dollar. The closest match today would be the quarter. Would people be able to get by with the smallest coin being the quarter? They would probably insist not -- but history proves otherwise. And as dramatic as the past century-plus of inflation has been, the total size of our currency has taken off like mad as of late, and all those trillions and trillions of dollars pumped into the supply -- with no end in sight -- cannot help but reduce the value of each dollar. That's "Inflation 101" (not that I expect Joe Sixpack to be able to wrap his mind around it -- or let go of the lie that "Inflation means the price of stuff gets 'inflated'" -- rather than the reality of it meaning that the size of the currency gets inflated -- all those "M" numbers added together). Oh, well. It's all hopeless. I don't think the Mint will ever produce more than "some" business strike coins, and perhaps one or two "specials" a year as their bone-toss to the numismatic community. That's after (my expectation) the consolidation of all four Mint branches into Denver (less coronavirus there than Philadelphia, San Francisco, or New York). It would not be trivial to relocate the design and production gear from PA to CO, but necessity IS the mother of invention, after all. As a seventy year old cripple I've had a lot of time to think on this stuff, and those are my thoughts. As was oft said back in Usenet days, "No flames, please!" <g> PS: Yesterday I bought four sets of Silver Proof coins, with the bonus West Point nickel. Two to keep, two to sell (when the price is right). Last year we bought two sets of all three varieties of coin sets with the bonus "W" penny, all to keep. Earlier this year, in the pre-corona era, we bought two of the Clad Proof Sets, and, had planned on getting two of the "circulating coin" sets, as we did last year, to have all three of the bonus W coins. But I don't think they are going to be making those sets, and yesterday they announced something that boils down to "we may make them" -- which to me, translates as "Don't hold your breath." Likewise, the Silver Proof Sets, normally a "we'll make as many as needed to fill orders we receive" are now a "don't hold your breath" item too. As probably everyone already knows, they had 190,960 sets already made. But they're no longer saying that they'll make as many as needed. Instead, I found this little notice buried deep in the product page [emphasis added]: <blockquote>The available inventory for this set is 190,960.Additional units MAY be produced.</blockquote> That's why I got the two extra sets. I realize that two is a trivially small number. Well, I am a man of trivially small finances. And so it goes... Sorry for the longish ramble. Don't worry, it's not the start of a trend. It's just a one-off, posted in the hope that it might be of some benefit to someone. The country is going through something it's never experienced, and our Peter Pan Generation ("I'll never grow up! I'll never grow up!") is tragically ill-prepared to endure the hardships that our forefathers shrugged off during earlier "troubles." Combine "troubles" several orders of magnitude worse with a populace several orders of magnitude less able to cope, and... I don't want to think about it. But, I do enjoy the collection dumps. If anyone enjoyed reading this -- or gained any benefit -- well, that's fantastic. If anyone was... peeved by it, console yourself with the knowledge that I'll be on my way now, as soon as I click the "Post Reply" button. If I do post anything else, I expect it won't be much more than a "What's this coin?" query, and, not likely to be very soon. So, on that note... [click][/QUOTE]

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