I came across a penny a couple of weeks ago and noticed something a little different about it. I debated to myself over whether or not it was just some kind of environmental damage or an error. The reason being, in my mind, because the anomalies on the right side of the picture below stop once they meet Lincoln. This made me think that they had to have been on the planchet prior to being stamped, otherwise they would continue on across the rest of the coin. I snapped a few pictures of the penny in various other locations as they were present all around Lincolns head. After trying to find other examples of this online, to verify my assumption that it happened at the mint, and having no success, I moved on and really forgot about it. Take a look at the picture and then continue on, as there is more to this post... I have the other pictures I took of this coin but it will only let me upload so many in one thread. If you would like to see them, just let me know and I can reply to you with those pictures in a comment. In the time since I found the first penny, I have seen three other similar examples, including one today. This peaked my curiosity and so I decided to post it hoping for an explanation. The fact that I had now found multiple coins of the same denomination and as well as from the same mint and same year, my mind started thinking that this might actually be an error coin. I am sure they are not worth anything monetarily, other than FV, I am just interested how it happened and maybe find out if anyone else has seen this before. Here are a few pictures from the other coins...
Ohh NO ! You said "stamped " LOL , I see tiny die cracks and I have no idea in Lincolns head . Damage ?
What stands out most to me about each of these coins are the, what look sort of like scratches on the plain of the coin. Also, these marks are much more defined, deeper if you will, coming out from behind Lincolns head. They seem to crisscross all over each of the coins except for one. In that one, they look like straight lines all traveling outward from the center of the coin. Look at the 2nd and 3rd photos above. They almost look like rays of sunlight shining outward from the middle of the coin. Here are more pictures but I am not sure they are any better. My phone sucks...
The ones that look like they are radiating from the center are from the way the metal flowed at the time of the strike. The random lines are die polishing lines. The blob attached to the A is an IDB. And the crack going across Abe's head is what we call a cracked skull.
I missed one Sal, the parallel lines show going from Abe's shoulder to the field are Linear plating blisters. That is only a problem with the Zlincolns. It is not so much that the Cent is a problem coin, the problems happen mostly when a die is over used.
