I have a 1897 Indian Head penny where the back is rotated off center. The back is rotated to the two-o'clock postion as opposed to the normal up and down postion. Is this unusual or common during this minting? Thanks
Welcome to the neighborhood! FYI - The front of a coin is called the obverse and the back of a coin is called the reverse. Just thought you'd like to know. The Mint allows a tolerance of 15 degrees rotation as acceptable, but it isn't unusual to find coins that are rotated more than 15 degrees to as much as 45 degrees. It's impossible for Mint employees to inspect every single coin, so they only remove them if they are noticed. As a rule, the premium for most of these is minimal. The coins most dealers and collectors are after are those that have rotation of 90 degrees or more. Chris
Interesting thing about those 1897 Indian cents! I have 4 of them that are rotated 175 degrees (nearly a full 180 degrees - and in fact most people would call these fully rotated). I have a theory that the dies were fixed in this position for some # of coins. I'd send you to www.rotateddies.com, check out the section on 'how to measure rotated coins', and make sure yours is 20 degrees as you guessed. At least for the Indian cents, only dies rotated 90 degrees or more are collectible and carry a premium. If a rare date has a rotation of 45 degrees, then that becomes collectible too.
