Here are three pictures of different angulations of a 1993 Lincoln penny notice that everything looks intact except words "States oF"!!!
I see, thank you guys, i actually took couple of other pennies and saw that it is pretty common to have these types of errors, i was surprised how many pennies actually had them!
I believe this is the reason they decreased the depth of Lincoln's bust on the obverse on newer cents. Unless the coin is sharply struck the metal flows into the base of the bust on the obverse and there isn't enough strength in the strike to fill the letters on the reverse. This happens on too many cents at the exact same location to be all caused by grease filled dies. In a single box of cent rolls I can find as many as a hundred or more of these and don't bother keeping any of them. Richard
Sounds like it may be good reasoning to put some obverse design consideration as fault for this. You're right about finding lots of them, with this in the same place (states and of, primarily). Also it happens on some dimes with the reverse lettering "us" and "u" in pluribus and unum, respectively (to the left of the torch). On the dimes, that corresponds to the highest relief of Roosevelt's head from what I can see. So your reasoning that on certain years of coins for dimes the bust depth might be a problem because of what it puts to the reverse design, but I'm not sure it explains why the lower part of the bust on the lincoln cents, which is not that high, would be causing the problem on this coin, IMO.
You might get more answers if you start your own thread on these as opposed to tacking them on to someone else's. Good luck!
