OP's coin came today, here's some pics of it. It's definitely a WAM. Forewarning, these pics kind of suck, I'm super-tired and they looked better on the viewfinder, lol. I'll reshoot the coin Sunday, probably.
Paul, my advice to you is not to get hung up on the spacing of the 'FG' initials. Pay more attention to the 'G' having the horizontal bar and the top of the 'G' not extending over the entire 'G'. These are to me the main charateristics of a WAM.
Like alot of others are talking about here, I have to say it's not a WAM. Based off of the FG spacing from the memorial and the AM are almost touching. I came to this conclusion using this helpful site. http://www.lincolncentresource.com/wideams.html
@Merc Crazy Thanks a lot for the pics. What a difference when you have a great clear picture. Now that we know it is a WAM what is every ones thought on a grade and how distracting is the stain on the obverse? How much does that take away from its value? My next question. I am not going to send it out to be graded but if it was sent out would a third party grade the coin with the stain on it or would it be sent back without a grade? Just curious thanks?
It would grade, but the grade would be harshly impacted by the staining. I personally don't think it's circulated, and would grade it MS60. Value-wise? God knows. Probably somewhere around $100 as a rough estimate. I haven't been paying much attention to auctions of WAM's. EDIT: Checked out Ebay... I'll say $100-$150 raw, $150-$200 slabbed.
please dont think to badly of me for this question i know it may be stupid to most of you vets but i am also new to collecting and looking for the cams and wams i know the penny went to close am in 1993 but can some one please tell me when the went back to wide am
According to this, in 1994 they went back to wide AM for all proof strikes and close AM for all business strikes. http://www.lincolncentresource.com/wideams.html
They didn't go back to Wide AM's after 1993, but some years have Wide AM's because proof reverses were used in business strikes. Those years are 1998-1999-2000.
it didn't. the "wide am" reverse was intended for proof coins, not business strike coins. the "wide am" coins were business strike coins struck accidentally with a proof reverse in 1998, 1999, and 2000.
Im still confused because all the new coins i see have wide am so at some point some year they had to go back to wide ams for for the circulation coins. so either i am sitting on on a gold mine of pennies with wide ams or at some point in time they put into circulation pennies with the wide ams and have kept it going up untill now. so can some one tell what year circulation pennies went back to wide am or tell me that if i have new pennies from like 2002 2003 2004 and up with a wide am that i am rich
I just looked at a 2005 and it is a close AM. Are you sure you know the difference between a wide and close AM?
Nice find! I've looked at a lot of 99s like this and I've never found one. In the first pics I was ready to say it wasn't but in the latter pics it's definitely the wide version. Even though it has the stain, I think you were fortunate it's that nice. As the years go by, these get more beat up.
