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Understandable but I guess if I was gonna risk my job and jail time smuggling out coins, I wouldn't be smuggling pennies, I'd be going for the silver or gold, something actually worth a whole lot more money.

 

Hey...those pennies can add up!!

http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/economy/error-coins-stolen-by-ex-mint-employee-from-new-jersey

 

Sorry to be the one to disagree, but I think someone just took a very sharp razor to this poor coin.

 

What would be a good nickname for this coin if it is a real mint error or variety coin. I probably will not receive it until after New Years day . I will have two days to decide if I want to keep it or not. Right now I'm thinking it may be a keeper. It looks like some of the gouge lines if this is what it is are in the rope looking design. a lot of the good die gouge coins have the rope looking design. I have a few of the rare 2005 P bison coins with the big die gouge going from the bottom of the coin up to the mound the bison is on and they have the rope looking gouge.

If someone takes a sharp knife and cuts a coin this creates a shallow V shape with raised up lines on each side of the sunken in v shape. I will be paying quite a bit for this coin if I keep it but where could I find another one like this if it is for real , what good is money if we don't spend it? I noticed that three of the lines appear to go under one of the folds of Lincoln's coat and one goes under liberty , this is a good sign it may be for real. the one on the reverse side also apears to look good. The big wide lines the one under liberty and the one at the back of Lincoln's head may have been what got the die retired if this is what happened. This will probably be one of my best coins if it is real if the government don't take it. I think they have eased up on grabbing the coins , I sure hope so.

I think this is a simple mint goof up and may have not been done intentional but how could we know what happened. I do believe the mint workers are trying to help us collectors. look at all of the Minnesota and Oregon doubled die coins , the extra high and low leaf quarters and the speared bison coins and on and on . both the P and D mint 2005 bison coins have a big die gouge with the P mint ones with the largest gouge and not very many folks have seen one of them. Both the P and D mint bison's looks to be done intentional IMO.

If this coin is for real there may be a few more of them out there somewhere. I'll let you know if I decide to keep the coin or not after I get to see it.

 

How about...

Or...

 

That's two good ideas.

 

I'd name it Freddy, after Freddy Krueger

 

Rascal, Jr.

 

I have to go back to what Mike Diamond says....try to figure out how this could have happened at the mint. The only way I see something like this happening is if someone intentionally scratched the die. I find that highly unlikely. I've also never seen an error in any reference source like this.

I suspect someone put some bits of copper wire on the coin, heated it to fuse it and then put the coin back in circulation. Over many years, the wire smoothed out and the coin browned.....bottomline, PMD IMO.

 

Think about this....

If you were doing this to a die, would you bother to make a perfectly straight line INTO THE DIE RECESSES? It would take a laser beam and very precision movement to do this. I can 100% guarantee nobody at the mint would ever try to pull this off and then take the step to mint coins with it.

 

Happy New Year!

I also thought the uniform marks across the devices seemed odd (Post #16), however, my eyes keep going back to the mark across Lincoln's throat and across LI[BERTY]. The die scratch doesn't appear to drop into the recessed of the letters.

 

Looks like what you think, but this can be done by covering the coin in wax and making the scrachs in the wax puting the coin a electrolyte of coppersulphate with a wire on it, and eletroplating copper for a cent on a wire or just the other wire, with a small battery or dc supply.

 

OK...I almost understood what you're saying...but not quite. I get the part about the wax and the electroplating. It's the "...on a wire or just the other wire..." part that's giving me trouble. Your idea sounds interesting...could you please offer some more details? Thanks...:thumb:

 

I still think it's razor blade damage. There have been several coins like this posted here over the years. They aren't as common as dryer coins though.

 

The problem with your theory is the lines are raised and not cut into the coin.

I'm on the fence with this coin.

 

Assuming the sratches are raised, how does one go about deeply scratching a hardened tool steel die? Certainly not with a scriber or a razor blade. I'm not sure if a coin press operator would have access to the equipment necessary to produce this "error".

 

I know there has been some playing around after hours at the mints. 1857 is the first year I can think of that really wild stuff came out. We could make a short list of what we know for sure.

Some of the lines look like razor cuts that are smashed back down but other lines don't have that look. I'm not ready to say one way or the other. Interesting coin. The images posted are not going to tell us the answer. I'm sure rascal will be able to tell us more once he can check it out with a loop.

If you keep the coin rascal and need some help with good macro images, I can help. It would be really cool to show this coin left the mint as we are seeing it. At the same time I feel this is one of those coins that we will never know for sure.

 

Does your last name start with a N ? If It does then I think I may know who you are. When it comes to error or variety coin collecting it is a very small world. Some of us have been accusing the mint workers of making some die gouges on purpose,this coin may prove that is right if it is for real. I checked the mail today and it has not arrived yet. the thing that bothers me about keeping this coin is that the seller don't want me to take it out of the holder. What if this was the awful glue thing , I could not be able to check for that. hopefully I can determine what it is by looking at the coin while it is still in the holder.

The only thing that has me thinking it may be a real mint error or die variety is the fact that 3 of the raised lines seem to go under one of the folds of Lincoln's coat and the bigger line looks to be under LIBERTY. the criss cross places where the lines cross each other appears to look good also.IMO some type of glue would be about the only thing that could look like this other than die gouges. I may lose my butt on this one but it wouldn't be the first time. I'm trying to get out of buying very many common type things and just trying to get a few unusal pieces. It will be easy to tell for sure if this coin left the mint in this condition if all of the raised lines are die gouges. it could be possible for something at the mint to goof up and make these raised lines such as a ejector or feeder finger , this would have been before the mint changed over to the aluminum feeder fingers. then again like me and others are saying this does look to be intentionally done. Troy

 

It sounds like crowbaby (post #33) is suggesting a process whereby a wax is applied to the coin, then etched out where the raised marks are to be. It's then submerged in a copper sulphate bath and an electrical current applied. The parts of the coin that are exposed (not wax covered) receive an electroplating that resembles dies scratches. I "think" that's what he's saying, anyway. Interesting concept, but still seems a bit far fetched...my eyes keep going back to the scratch under LI[BERTY].