Lincoln 1918 - Guess the mint

This should be trivially easy for you Lincoln fans. I have three mint state 1918 Lincoln cents. Later I will post the obverses. For now I just wanted to illustrate the vast differences in strikes between the three mints.

Which cent was struck at which mint?

And don't look at the file names !!

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

P D S

 

I'm inclined to agree. It's funny how San Francisco did such a bang-up job with Morgans, yet they couldn't strike a Wheatie early on to save their lives. At least, with the third coin, there is the defense that it's in an absolutely terminal state of die wear. Perhaps San Francisco was normally held short of sufficient dies for the production demand, which may inform what's perceived as poor strike quality from them.

 

Just because i have seen these die states from all three mints, Im gonna go D P S. From what i have seen, Philly did a better job than the other two at striking.

Check out this 1917 weak D i picked up from Eagle Eye

 

And the consensus is P D S

 

P D S

Sent from my A463BG using Tapatalk

 

I can't quite come to declare a causal relationship between die wear and the seriousness/potential for machine doubling, but it seems intuitive that heavily-worn dies might be more susceptible. This coin is a pretty good example.

 

PDS is my guess as well

 

S-P-D

 

I'm going SPD.

 

PSD

 

I say S P D

 

I'm in agreement here on the PSD.

 

Hint: It's not PDS. That leaves PSD DPS DSP SPD SDP.

I have a fuller explanation planned for tomorrow... with pictures and references.

 

Like i said, im still in for DPS

 

I've just Followed you, so the minimum time elapsing between you making that post and my reading that post will be possible.

 

I can agree with that. As the striking occurs, the faces of the dies wear slightly creating a miniscule amount of more distance between dies and with so many strikes, possibly jarring the die looser allowing for the vibrations and the bounces to happen that cause machine doubling.

 

I'm not a heavy Lincoln collector, but this is most interesting!

 

Or, maybe as the die wears, metal is worn off of the striking surface. This could increase the volume inside the die cavity. The volume of metal in the planchet stays constant. Since the metal does not fill the die fully any more, then the outer edges of the dies take more of the striking force and are more likely to bounce or chatter. Just speculatin'...

 

This is what I like about coins. Within one year, you can have three coins that differ only in mint mark. But they are not merely three examples of the same thing, but three variations whose differences help us understand all three more deeply.

The San Francisco mint has some well struck reverses in early years, but many look just like the first picture above. Here are two coins from the Heritage archives that show a common weakness. The shoulder of Lincoln on the obverse gets most of the copper, leaving the opposite side weak at the O in ONE and often in the E PLU area.


Here is the obverse to the first picture above. It has had a few dings along the way, but the obverse doesn't show any strike weakness. And the sharpness of the front shows there is no wear, which confirms that the weak reverse was struck that way, not worn later.



Philadelphia seems to have the highest ongoing standards. Perhaps it's because they held the master hubs and struck proofs, so had the ability to swap out worn dies and monitor the strike quality. Here is the obverse of that coin.


Denver apparently had a bad year in 1918. Here, the obverse.


This is a nice clean strike. This coin was in an ANACS holder as MS61. Since that's the bottom end of mint strikes, I figured I had nothing to lose by breaking it out. Moreover, based on this reference coin, I think it compares favorably with MS65! This links to "Reference coin: Coppermania Registry Example MS 65". The reverse is essentially identical and both have the same kind of glossy finish.


I like coppermania's comment - "I have seen many 18 D's with soft reverses and I passed to chase one with a full strike. When presented with the chance to buy this one I pulled the trigger because of the color and technical grade but would still buy a better one if and when(however unlikely)one is found."

From the NGC site: "These coins were poorly made, with overused dies that were seemingly set slightly further apart than ideal to extend their lives. Fully struck examples are thus very elusive, and those displaying full red color are extremely rare."

So each of the three reverses is typical for its mint for this year, and the answer:

S-P-D.