Large Cent "ONE C..what?"

I recently bought a small lot of cull large cents off ebay. On the reverse, ONE CENT, side the vowel in the word CENT has been altered to make an inappropriate word. It looks to me that this would have to have been done on the die at the mint. So with a simple google search i found a few more examples in other forums and even one for sale on ebay. PMD or some sort of Midnight Mint joke?

I can post pics but not sure if that would be in breach of forum rules and regs

 

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They say they are Brothel tokens. I give them out to male friends for fun when I can get them

 

So is it a novelty token? wasnt made in the mint?

 

No not mint made.

 

Interesting anyway.. Do you think they were being made in the same time period? Pretty racy token for that day and age.

 

My cousin has one and swears it's an error no matter what I said. I didn't even know this word went that far back.

 

Goes a lot further back than that, Tommy...at least that's what I hear.

Bruce

 

Post mint, it was popular to do in the 19th century

 

These are what are referred to as "obscened" cents. It is a post strike alteration of the coin. Quality can vary from very crude to quite well done. While they are usually seen on large cents I have seen it done on indian heads and even (rarely) wheat cents. I even have in my collection an AU 1835 half cent to which it has been done.