Dealers, and numismatists, lend your eyes on this photo, albeit, blurry, hopefully, more clearer ones soon. I am keeping the owner anonymous here, but this photo was posted on my closed Facebook coin group. I only keep the identity confidential on here is because I don't have permission to give names. Not yet anyways. But since the coin was shared on our group by the owner, I thought it would be okay to post it here. I do have more information on the back story of how the coin was acquired. But, in the meantime, take a look. Take a guess at the composition metal. The owner claims its a D, but so see no mint mark.
My guess is that the owner thinks it's aluminum. My guess as to what it really is would be plated copper. What's the weight to the nearest 0.1g?
Not too much to offer based on those photos. I'm assuming that the owner believes it is aluminum, but it looks kind of bright for aluminum and the staining on the coin seems very strange.
Didn't the government just confiscate the '74d aluminum recently?...if real, what a boneheaded move to show anyone, let alone the internet.
Two side issues come to mind: 1. The corrosion-like marks on the obverse may have come from a mercury test for aluminum; that would have been destructive testing, and would have ruined the coin. You Tube has a number of videos showing this process. 2. To the best of my knowledge, ALL the aluminum cents were 1974-D coins, so your friend's wasting his time, whether or not it looks like aluminum. Tin plating looks like aluminum, too.
It's a Philly strike. Being so late I'm told I'll get better photos later today, and the weight. She did pm me better but blurry photos, clearly you can see no mint mark.
Silverhouse, here's a mistake people make with images of single coins (or stamps). They decide to scan the coin, put it down on the glass (at, say, 300dpi) and hit the Scan button; a moment later, they crop away 8 or 10 inches of empty space, and wonder why the image is lousy. SELECT a 2x2 or 3x3 area down in the lower-left corner (usually), use 600dpi, and (often) brighten the image one notch. If you're not happy with the result, go to 1200dpi, but still SELECT a small area to work with, not the entire scanner glass. Cropping away 90% of your scan invariably leads to inferior results. This is really important on eBay, where the image makes or breaks the sale. I have a decent camera with a good macro mode, but much prefer scanning, although it takes longer, generally, while scanning the entire 8+ x 11+ area (and discarding most of it) takes forever.
I do not have the coin in hand. I am supposed to get better pictures today and also the weight of the coin. this person is not a coin collector obviously, and this is just one of many coins in the collection she was left by her father. so far The Story Goes is her father acquired it from an officer in the Marine Corps. In 1980. who he acquired it if it is real is anybody's guess.
So many people out there try to "will" something to be what it isn't. I run across this all the time with clarinets. When someone finds one with no name on it they want someone to tell them that it's a top of the line Pro clarinet, even though they bought it for $50 in a flea market just because they got lucky. Then they get upset when they are told otherwise and it's worth about $50. They go off to another group of people and replicate the situation. I'm sure I have some 1974 cents laying around ...
Nope almost ALL of them were 1974 Philadelphia cents, there was only one 1974-D and I don't believe it was ever intended to be made (All the experimentation was being done in Philadelphia and all the test runs were being done there, why have a few struck in Denver? No reason for it and the mint has no records as far as I know of requesting any be struck in Denver or sending them any planchets.) I firmly believe that the Denver coin was the result of a mint official having it struck on his own initiative. After all the test striking took place in 1973, and if it was approved, as it looked like it was going to be, there would be billions of 1974 D aluminum cents. So no harm no foul, until the aluminum idea was scrapped.
The Cent in question also looks a bit Misaligned. I don't think that a few Aluminum Cents for specimens would be Misaligned so quickly. It would be like hiring an artist to paint a perfect potrait of you then he paints you cross-eyed
I stand corrected on the 1974 vs. 1974-D mix - never owned one, as you might guess. The scanning tip was not for the OP, it was to pass along to the lady in question to help HER get more clear scans of the coin, and, for any CT reader to experiment with.
