I posted a while back about finding my grandfathers old stash of lincoln cents and since then I've started going through them more thoroughly. Now before get myself excited over nothing I thought I would ask you guys what you thought about a couple that have caught my eye. I was browsing Heritage Auctions website and noticed certain 1954 Cents from the Philadelphia mint carried quite a significant value, so naturally I started going through the tube labeled "B.U. 1954"... The pictures don't do them much justice in terms of the toning on them, but I tried my best... I'm relatively new to the specific grading and qualities of errors/dies/strikes etc. but from what I can tell these seem to have at least something going for them. - The first Three pictures are of one that appears to have doubling on "E Pluribus Unum" on the reverse - The following Two Pictures show one with what appears to be doubling above the "B" in Liberty on the obverse - The third Group of pictures is one with the most going on... the entire outer of both sides has die scratches/scrapes, the shoulder and forehead both have cracking, and the reverse has a large lump on the right hand wheat stalk. Hopefully you guys will be able to give me some better insight as to what I have here... any information would be much appreciated. I was only able to post a few but do have more similar 1954 cents as well that I could use advice on as well if these are anything special. Edit: the pictures are a bit out of order so don't follow the numbers on the files. They read left to right etc. Posting as I run out the door so I apologize for the rapidly thrown together post.
Nice coin. Nice photos too. So this one has several things going, I believe this coin was struck with a "Late Stage Die", due to the die cracks on shoulder and head. There is some doubling in the word Pluribus that I would say is "Machine Doubling" or "Die Deterioration Doubling". then the "Die Chips" on and near right wheat ear. So a multi-error coin and only visable due to the fact that it is in BU condition. You are looking for the right things. This link has the detail for these error if you have not seen it already.http://www.error-ref.com/part_iv__die_errors/
In terms of value, do you think it would be worth having a shop look at them and potentially grading them? I'm still trying to figure out how the values of these go because some appear to go for very high in places like Heritage auctions, yet seemingly similar coins sell for hardly anything on say eBay. For example I thought it was weird for one to sell for upwards of $23,000 on heritage auctions, yet some are going for no more than $50 on eBay with the same grade... any rhyme or reason to this?
Your coin is in great condition, but it has errors. And minor errors at that. So great condition =value up, errors=value down, minor errors= value down. You will have a hard time finding coins like yours to compare them to. It will take some time to get a better understanding of Errors.
Ah I thought that the errors made them more rare and added value, shows I have a lot to learn lol. I do have others of this year/mint in better condition without the errors, in that case is there any chance for some value there? I'm trying to figure out why there's such a range of prices for coins listed with the same grade (MS67 RD )
