1984 mint error questions with pic

My advice to you would be to listen to the people who know. I'm very confident that this is not a mint error by any means. Last time I checked, the mint does not use a blow torch on their coins before releasing them. And even if it were a real error, hundreds of dollars would be a stretch and thousands of dollars would downright lunacy. Just because the coin isn't an error, doesn't mean that you forged it yourself, so there's no need to get defensive and play the TPG card. The bottom line is, nothing like that happens at the mint (not to my knowledge, anyway), but that doesn't mean that you're trying to get over on someone. The best thing for you to do is end the auction now and send it in to ANACS if you don't believe us.

I don't call myself an expert, but I've collected long enough to know that a coin that's 'melted' is never a mint error. Coins are not molten when struck, so the closest thing to 'melting' is when a brittle planchet shatters.

I apologize for being so stern, but we all just want to help you, so you don't lose money over something like this.

 

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Thank you BigH, that's what I wanted to hear??? I mean the dollar amount. If it's on worth 40 bucks or so, there's no way I'm going spend the money to have it graded. If lunacy exists on eBay, which I highly believe, Then maybe this is my winning ebay lottery ticket. I have no idea what it would cost to grade this coin, but inclination is that it'll be substantial because it's a one of a kind error (if it is an error coin, which I do believe). The only money I could lose on this is one cent.

So what about the rim of the coin? I posted some pictures of the side and if someone prior to me tried faking this coin, why would they use it? Sure someone can probably build a fixture to melt the coin and cause the rim to swell, but why go through all that trouble then simply use the one cent as cash???

I know that I got this coin in this condition, so that part is rest assured. With the knowledge I possess and having the coin in my hands with high power magnification, I KNOW that the coin is legit

Most posters that say it's burned or cooked or torched also say they're not experts. The ones that say it's genuine, don't.

So be that as it may, I know what I have, but don't know the value of it.

 

I would like to quote some of the posts on this forum for my eBay listing. Since I have limited knowledge as to the qualities of this coin, I'd appreciate if I could quote the members here anonymously. If you object, please feel free to edit the post that I quoted to delete it.

After "expirementing" with burning, torching, cooking etc, there's absolutely no way this is post mint ., i.e. fake.

Thanks for all the input to date.

 

I'm sure you aren't going to, be feel free to quote me!

Let me ask you a question---if this was the case of a "broken die", where did the extra metal come from on the Rev. of your coin? The planchets aren't that thick and that metal had to come from somewhere? If there was a way to get that much metal from the planchet like your coin shows then I would say that you would have a 50-50 chance....at this time I don't even see a 99-1. I'm sorry.

If you are sure that this is real then you really need to pull it from ebay and send it to one of the grading companies. If you don't want to pay the higher fees of NGC or PCGS send it to PCI or ANACS. If this coin was real then it would be worth much more than you will get on ebay.

If you want an experts advise check out this guy: http://www.fredweinberg.com/
he is a true expert who works in errors everyday.

I've been wrong before and would be the first to say "Good for you" if it is real, but from my years of collecting and what I know about errors says this is not the real deal.

Speedy

 

Actually there is no extra metal, in fact the coin weighs .10 grams LESS then another 1984 penny that i weighted. 2.5 grams (mine) vs 2.6 grams (ordinary run-of-the-mill penny)

I currently have 19 watchers on this listing. I would consider pulling the coin if the possibility exists that the coin MIGHT be worth thousands of dollars, but as several posters have pointed out, the coin isn't worth that much money.

Now if the coin is real and would be worth thousands, please let me know and It'll be pulled in 1/2 of a heart beat.

But since we're only dealing with $100 or so, it ain't worth my time or trouble to go through the effort of ending the listing and sending the coin out for grading, when I should get close to what a graded coin would sell for anyway.

Make sense?

 

Well, yes, that would be quite true, if the coin were authentic. I really don't like to beat a dead horse, but I cannot stress enough the fact that your coin is not an authentic mint error. The coin is NOT a broken die, that I can tell you. Since I am 100% positive it is not that, then what do you suggest the coin is? The coin is melted on the reverse as the affected area enteres the normal area. That does NOT happen on any U.S. coin at the U.S. Mint. The winner of your auction will get it and realize it is not authentic, and return it to you and cause a big problem for everybody, or, more likely, someone who is new to error coins will get your coin and not even know what he has is altered. Either way, the result is not good.

Let me rephrase what I said earlier, I'm not an expert, but I've been collecting long enough to say with absolute certainty that your coin is not an authentic error. I can also say with some degree of confidence that you did not intentionally alter the coin yourself, however that does not make the coin any more authentic. I strongly suggest you send a picture of both sides of your coin to Fred Weinberg, like another member posted. If you'd like, I can recommend some other websites. I'd be happy to help. You see, to me, things like your coin slowly deteriorate the hobby. I know you don't mean to do that, but it's happening anyway.

Also, if you'd like to know why someone would intentionally alter a coin just to release it back into circulation, I'll tell you some plausible scenarios.

#1: Let's say a guy decides he wants to make a quick buck. He might try to melt or otherwise alter a coin in such a way as to make it appear to be a genuine mint error. He tries to sell the 'error' to some would-be sucker, but no one takes. Since no one wants the coin, he just tosses it bank into his change jar and cashes them all in.

#2: Now let's say a kid has to do a science experiment, but he forget to make his paper-mache volcano and buy the baking soda, so he decides he'll grab some pocket change and melt 'em with his dad's welding torch, and hope he can skate by. After he comes home, he has no use for the coins, so he takes them down to 7-11 for a Slurpee.

#3: Maybe some guy is just bored, so he decides he'll melt some coins using whatever he can find, just to see what happens. He's amused for a while, but then he gets tired of that and figures he'll do something else. The coins get tossed back in the ashtray of his car, and eventually get spent.

Whichever of these scenarios (or perhaps an entirely different one) was the one your coin was the result of is unimportant. The fact is that your coin is NOT authentic, and no amount of guarantees and assurances are going to change that. I'm sorry if I seemed rude, and I'm sorry that you had the coin for so long thinking it was a mint error, but that's just the simple fact of the matter. For paying just one cent, the coin is undoubtedly an interesting piece. I keep a lot of coins with post-mint damage in my personal roll-find collection, as unique oddities. They are worth nothing to anyone but me, aside from curiosity piquers (for lack of a better word). I'm afraid your coin is no different. A curious piece by any means, but unfortunately, by no means is said coin an authentic mint error. Believe me if you will, or continue to deny it. I just suggest that before you send the coin, save everyone time and money and send it to a gradings service, or if you'd rather not incur the costs, send it to Ken Potter for authentication for just $5 plus shipping. He is a mint error specialist, and will not encapsulate your coin, but rather assure it's authenticity. E-mail him for further information about sending in your coin, at KPotter256@aol.com . After he tells you that your coin is not authentic, the book will be closed. If you decide to keep the proverbial book upon, then I think it would be best to refer to Mr. Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain), who said "denial ain't just a river in Egypt."

Again, I apologize for my harshness, but this is going to get out of hand. I suggest you cut your losses, cancel the auction, and keep the coin as a curiosity. I also advise that you keep your nose to your change, and maybe one day, you will find a thousand dollar coin. I hope this coin doesn't deter you from doing so in the future.

Well, good luck, and happy hunting if you decide to take my advice.

 

thebigh,,

You are totally wrong about this coin,,, why you are so insistent that this coin is torched is beyond me,,, unless you're one of the bidders for the coin and realize the value of this coin and are trying to devalue it, EDITED

This coin is a major die break and you know it.

Attached is a picture of a torched coin. Notice the thin copper burned away on one coin and the other is totally destroyed.

My coin has NEITHER burnt copper or has any mark of being held in a fixture.

So be that as it may, I do not value your opinion about this coin and fully believe your earlier postings are to discredit my coin for personal gain.

On the coin on the left, notice the copper caldding missing between the words God and We. And that didn't even get hot enough to deform the coin, you'll also see a hammer mark that was able to distort the coin. The coin on the right I don't think needs any explaination.

 

BigH, hes right, a torched copper/zinc cent peels. Ive tried it before. Its not torched, but i still dont know if its genuine.

 

There are different ways to torch a coin......

Speedy

 

Speedy, ive done it with a blow torch (high heat, high power flame) and a gas stove (low power, less heat). Both yield the same results. Im not trying to disagree with anybody, but im just adding anything that helps.

 

The coin does look odd but from what I see I don't believe it has been melted and I think it probably is a major die break. It looks like the initial break was deep and then later shallow flakes of the die surface came off in different thicknesses around the periphery. The melting theory does not explain the complete lack of detailing the top of the head of Lincoln. If you heated the coin until the zinc was soft and then pressed something into the head there would still be details visible. If the metal was softened enough to create the bulge on the reverse at the same time as the depression on the obv the coin could hardly help but be distorted but that doesn't appear to be the case. It is also suggestive that the coin exhibits an unusually high fin on the obverse. If you were going to alter a cent, why use one that has an obvious error already on it?

It would be nice to examine it in hand but just from the photos that there is a good chance it is genuine.

 

I believe this is an ACTUAL error, BECAUSE, when zinc burns, it almost always becomes very rough and irritated. For a science expirement, I've placed both a 1990 penny and a 1982 penny (more copper) on a torch and both came out completely different from those original photos.
The 1990 penny was completely melted into a ball of metal within seconds (seconds!), while the 1982 penny didn't melt as much, but it broke apart on the rim and molten zinc spilled out. Zinc obvious melts at lower temperatures than copper, from what I saw. Still, this may not be true, but it was for the expirement I did.
I'd have to melt 100s of pennies of both pre-1985 and lower (correct?) and from the 1990s to get an accurate result based on average.

Still, it's possible the penny originally depicted in this post was melted on a very hot burner. An open flame burns different than a heated surface sometimes. That is, one is a literally exposed to open flame AND heat, while the other is only exposed to heat.

The only problem I have with the burner is that this penny's luster appears to be the same on both the normal surface and the damaged surface. Could have possibly been re-plated, but I just see some of that "authentic grit" and "tone" on it still...so I'm going with authentic.

Besides, that missing chunk from the obverse is a VERY CLEAN cut. Hard to produce such a clean cut by burning the coin, because a burn of any type would also melt the surrounding details EASILY. And tooling the coin would leave scratches and other obvious clues. Polishing the cut area would also fail to reproduce the authentic luster, because that would only leave a mirror in place of the cut.

Though the reverse looks a lot closer to have just been burnt with a torch, make sure to look at the rim around there as well. That's madness that the rim still remains! A torch would 99.9% of the time, Melt that rim as well...no question.

Either this is a REALLY good fake, or just plain...not a fake.
How's that?

 

Yes, you're right. I was trying to get over on you. That's why I told you to get the coin certified. Believe what you will. For your persistence and udder disregard for any opinion that conflicts with your own, I will no comment no further. If you want to be delusional, be delusional. For someone who asks for opinions, you're not very happy when you get one.

Good luck with your coin. Maybe you'll get your millions for this one-of-a-kind, super-rare, extreme to the max error. Neato! Maybe one day I'll be lucky enough to be that insistently thick-skinned, so there will be no doubt about anything. If someone tells me anything that doesn't mesh with my viewpoint, I'll immediately dismiss it, even to the point of thinking that the person wants to profit from my misfortune. Won't everything be gumdrops and lollipops then.

Good luck with your mega rare error. I only hope that you can forgive me, and invite me to your private bungalow in the East Indies after you sell it.

Or maybe, this entire post (it would be the entire topic, if not for the postings of some real collectors, rather than get-rich-quick treasure hunters) could be summed up in one little emoticon.

:rolling:

 

I first joined this forum when I bought a silver chinese coin. several members suggested that it was silver and offered ways to authenticate the coin,,, I listened to their recommendations and concluded myself that the chinese coin was fake.

Now on the other hand I've presented this penny for members review. Several people sugegsted it was torched or baked or cooked or whatever, but they just left their opinions in the one posting.

I did't know if something like this is worth a couple hundred or a couple thousand, or $20 bucks. I now have a fairly accurate idea as to what this coin is worth, and will live with what ebay gives me.

Had this been an earlier penny with a high percentage of copper, I could see someone faking this type of coin, but with the thin copper cladding on today's pennies once heated to the point of melting the coin, the copper is gone,,, on a side note, it'd probably be easy to fake a zinc non copper-clad penny, by simply removing the copper cladding in an acid that eats copper and not zinc,,, (if there is such an acid)

Eventhough I am not expecting to be able to afford an east indies bungalow, I'm hoping the coin fetches enoough to buy a piano for the kids from the estate sale down the street, if it brings in enough to buy a bungalow in east indies, so be it.

Like I've stated countless times, I found this coin in 1984, put it in a plastic bag in a cardboard box and moved it 5 times in the 20 plus years it's been in my possession.

thebigh, I appologize for being rude in my previous post, I'm such an EDITED sometimes that I make a complete EDITED out of myself, oh well,,,

 

I guess this seems to sum it up---
It is so hard to see a coin like it really is just through photos. That is why it would be a good idea to send it for grading even if it only sold for $20. Heck, at least offer the seller a deal to where he pays for it to be graded and you send it in--if it comes back real then he pays for the grading and gets the coin...if it comes back fake then he pays nothing and that is that.

---While I still think its not a real error, who knows what I would think if I saw it in hand.

Speedy

 

Has anyone tried different acids in their experiments ?

 

I would start with coca-cola,,, it eats copper,,,

wouldn't that be something,,, fake an unclad coin by putting it in coca-cola,,, the GWB admin would have to ban coke to protect the interests of business,,,,:goofer:

 

mespe,

Did you sell the coin on eBay or cancel the auction? If the latter, then send the coin to Mike Diamond at Coneca and see what he says. If it is an error, then it might make a good subject for a story in Coneca's Errorscope and Coin World.


Frank

 

Found this in my journey's,,,

Look Familar??? Ummm Thought all the :desk: was worth it!!!

 

Very interesting! I guess I'm going to have to go find some crow This isn't the first and I'm sure won't be the last time I'm wrong.

BTW--I checked out your listing and see that you have some big names in the business bidding on your coin

Speedy