In another thread, justafarmer posted a mint mark map to help someone determine if the mint mark and date were in the right spot to correspond with a listed DD. I think its really cool but couldnt find a way to digitally "overlay" a coin to that map. I went ahead and just used some foiling tape and stuck it to my screen in the same place as the map. then I simply made my image the same size as the map and "moved" it over. The result was a pretty simple way to check a coin against a map. I pulled out all my 47S just to see how they lined up. I have no DDs here and Im not worried about that. I thought it was a cool way to check a coin you may think is a DD. If it doesnt line up right, you can eliminate it pretty easily. Its cool to see how much those MMs differ when comparing.
@justafarmer has done a good job re the overlay on different dated coins. I just wonder if anyone knows how many different locations the S has on the 1947 cent. In those days the mint mark was hand punched into the die. According to the Red Book, 99 million 1947 S coins were minted. How many dies (obverse) would it take to produce that many coins? Maybe a more knowledgeable member knows if the US Mint keeps a record about that. @GDJMSP Perhaps you know.
Lange's book " Complete Guide to Lincoln cent"mention that the 47-S dies were run about 800,000 to a million , but there were only 6 RPMs.
I have long been of the opinion Lange's estimate of 800,000 to 1,000,000 strikes per die is high. 99,000,000/800,000 = 125 dies. Wexler lists 25 different RPM's for 1947-S. This translates to approximately one out of every five 1947-S Lincoln Cents struck is an RPM. Then you can add in the five DDO's Wexler lists and based on Lange's estimates the odds of finding a recognized variety for the 1947-S Lincoln Cent goes to one out of four. If you restrict to only CONECA's listed 8 RPMs and 4 DDO's the odds still sit at one out of ten.
