I was going to post this in Error Coins, but I'm not sure it's technically an error as I suspect strike doubling. This coin came from my dad's collection when I was a young numismatist. At the time, I noticed some visible doubling with my naked eye -- an extremely rare and valuable doubled die for sure!!! -- or so I thought, until a search on the good old 1990s Internet yielded no reference to an 1883 doubled die. This coin recently came back into my possession during a visit to my dad's, so I put it under the loupe for the first time today and I'm not sure what to make of this. There is a bit of die cracking that joins the letters of UNITED together in the same areas that the doubling is visible - never noticed this without magnification. I think this is strike doubling due to the characteristic "shelf" effect, but man is it SEVERE! It is also curiously localized to only this area of the coin. It begins on the U of UNITED and extends significantly to the S of STATES, and is barely visible at the T. Any ideas on what would cause such a localized and severe doubling? Magnified pictures taken by placing my loupe to the camera lens. Real high tech imaging equipment here! Rather unrelated, also with my dad's coins was a true mint error, a 1970-D Quarter struck on Dime stock that he received as a tip bussing tables when he was young. The story is that there were two of the curiously thin Quarters, and he split the take with the other lady working that day. I thought he had given his to me as it did spend time in my childhood collection, and for years I could not find it and thought I'd spent it by accident. I am so happy that it's still in the family!
Here's where you'll find the best explanation :Wexler's Coins and Die Varieties (doubleddie.com) Good Luck .
