I recently found this while searching through pennies. It's a 1995 D Lincoln Cent - BU. It has a very clear "S" underneath that is more than a mere "phantom". There is actually raised metal. I haven't seen any others like it. Is this worth sending in for grading? Is this common? Thoughts? Note: I am aware that in the mid to late 90s, some dies were made with the D or S on them and were inadvertently sent to Philadelphia. Instead of creating new dies, the mint polished the mintmark off the dies. Some dies left a "phantom mint mark" because they had not been 100% wiped away. I have seen a few of these, but they are truly "phantom" and can only be seen on high grade coins and only barely when holding it up and tilting it in certain light. Thus far, these have apparently only been reported on Philadelphia cents with a "D" phantom mintmark. However, I'm not aware of any "S" dies having been polished at the Denver mint, but that seems to be what happened here. Moreover, this one shows much more than a "phantom" mintmark. It's actually a clearly visible raised trace of an S. That's my speculation on this. Haven't ever seen one reported.
its just a plating issue, RPM's no longer exist after 1990, so a 1995 d over s is impossible,, starting 1990 mint marks are made with the die, no more hand punching them..
I think its a combination of an auspiciously placed die chip and some spotting/toning that gives your eyes the impression of an S. The brain tries to make patterns and sense where there often isn't any. I don't think you have a D/S. If you did, that would be major news, and you should send it to Wexler at CONECA for authentication.
Haha. No, I may be wrong in my "speculation". I just believed it would be helpful to provide all the information I had found relating to this, which may or may not provide a plausible alternative explanation. I welcome opinions which may be more informed than mine, which is the reason I posted this.
The D and S master hubs were MADE in Philadelphia. After a sufficient number of D mint master dies were made the D was ground off the master hub and it was used to create "Plain" master dies. Improper grinding of the mintmark resuted in the "phantom D and S" cents but they all came from modified D master hubs.
That's helpful to know. So you don't think this could be an "S phantom"? Side note: here's some slightly different angles. It's tough to get good pictures. You can see why this one is so baffling to me.
I remember a thread like this sometime last year and the mint mark looked identical. Either this is the same coin, or it had to be made by a die, plating issues would be pretty implausible. I would suspect that it is a die chip.
I really don't see a phantom S.. looks more like a small lowercase z. I suspect it might be a Plating Bubble by the looks of this picture you provided
Makes sense, but it doesn't seem to apply to an active Denver die. We know it can't be an S mint mark - "phantom S" on a Denver die is more a euphemism than a descriptive term - so in this case it seems likely that it's just another manifestation of how poorly zinc and copper get along.