Being a collector, you can determine what and how you collect. Who cares what others think? Below is a very short set of ragged clip cents from 1959-1961.
It's hard for me to imagine anyone spending or accepting one -- certainly a machine wouldn't. But mint bags count as "in the wild", don't they?
NOT a clip! These are wonderful examples of a grossly impure ingot, rolled out to a strip with voids, then normally punched into planchets for striking into coins. A 'clip' is an overlap with another punching (curved) or with the edge of the strip (straight). That wonderful 1960 is also my favorite of your group.
I thought the same.. More like a Fissure. @JCro57 would you agree to fissure rather than ragged clip? How about @Fred Weinberg any ideas? Here is the information on Ragged Fissures http://www.error-ref.com/fissures_-_ragged___smooth/
I am certainly open to the 59 and 61 being fissures. I do believe the 60 a ragged end of strip example.
So who was hungry - a metal eating squirrel at the Mint? Before you say squirrels cannot chew metal, my father-in-law constructed a metal cone to place on the pole beneath the bird feeder. Worked well until the squirrels got so hungry they chewed the metal until they could squeeze thru the hole (saw them do it, took several days before they were successful). Didn't have the heart to fix it after that.
Thanks for pointing it out, John. I saw the word "ragged", and I just naturally followed with the word "clip". Agree that a "clip" should be more "uniform" than the examples shown. On the other hand, I do have a ragged clip wheat penny in my collection. Not as dramatic as the 3 examples though.
If you want to be that picky there is no such thing as a clipped planchet or blank. No blank is ever punched out and then "clipped". Technically they are "incomplete blanks/planchets" as they were never full blanks or planchets.