Hey Guys, I got this penny in some change the other day and noticed it was messed up. I have tried to figure out what the heck this thing is but can’t. It looks somewhat like a “broadstrike” although it’s not completely blank on one side. The messed up side is showing a distorted Lincoln Memorial that appears to be a negative of the tales side of the coin. If someone can identify this coin it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Bbates
Brokage or capped die strike would both be proper terms for this coin. A brokage is a coin that appears to have the same image on both sides due to a capped die strike leaving an incuse image of the reverse of the coin stuck to the die on the obverse of the second coin. At a later state the coin stuck on the die gets so thin that it no longer leaves an image of the reverse but rather a distorted image of the obverse on the second coin. At this point only the term capped die strike would apply. Richard
[FONT="], Thanks for responding, there’s a guy on eBay who has a coin that looks similar to this one and he's calling it a psychedelic mint. I googled that and came up with nothing, psychedelic might be a term he just pulled out of thin air, I don't know…[/FONT]
A capped die strike and a brockage are closely related. If a coin gets stuck to say the hammer die as striking continues it makes brockages. Then as the coin stuck to the die spreads it makes late stage brockages. If it speads and thins to the point the design disappears then it makes capped die strikes. If it thins enough that the design of the die starts to show through again then it makes late stage capped die strikes. And if it finally gets thin enough that the die design shows with just slight distortion then you have a very late stage capped die strike. This coin is somewhere between a late stage brockage and an early stage capped die strike. The brockage of the reverse is enlarged and spread, and the image of Lincoln is just starting to show through the die cap. Oh, I see Ziggy has already covered it, but abe is wrong it is not a late stage die cap.
I saw it too. I offered him $25, but he said no. Oh well. I did get a cool capped die slabbed at MS63 Red on eBay last week for about $100. I wonder how many times it was hit. Ben
There little to no chance of finding a capped die in a roll because capped die is usually much greater in diameter than a normal coin. (So it would not fit neatly in a roll.) Your best bet of finding a capped die is in a bag directly from the Mint. The Mint now sends their coins to a contractor to be rolled and since about 2004 or so the contractor's employees are no longer allowed to keep error they find.
"the bag" I FOUND THE BAG THAT ALL THE ERRORS WENT INTO! I bought a mint sewn bag on eBay and found the coolest surprise. The coins, 1974-D cents, had massive die clash that the mint workers tried to fix and wound up polishing off major parts of the obverse portrait of Lincoln along with some of the die clash. So now the bag has coins that show Lincoln with no tie, missing coat front, a floating lower lip, floating hair at the forehead, missing neck (front and back), very weak "Y" in LIBERTY, the "D" from UNITED and columns from the reverse on the obverse. I even found one that the nose had so much die polish that it was almost detached. On the reverse of the coins you can see the bust of Lincoln between the columns, parts of the word LIBERTY in the field and between the columns, the letter "Y" from LIBERTY shows up very strong on about half of the coins and BOTH sides of the coins have 1000s of polish marks where they tried to remove the die clash damage above and below the monument. I've found coins with fingerprints where the coins were inspected. Some coins have the die clashed and polished obverse dies with new reverse dies and a few coins have no die clash but have different degrees of die rotation. I would say that 9 out of 10 coins in the bag have some sort of major error! I've just started looking at the coins, so I'm not sure what else I'll find. I'll take photos as soon as I get a chance and post them. My guess is that this bag was pulled to be melted and somehow survived the last 36 years. At first I thought the coins were adjustment strikes because so much of the portrait is missing. Then I saw all the deep polish marks and started putting things together. I have a bag of 4500+ error Cents. It's like they kept trying to fix the dies and just made it worse with each adjustment. So yes... at least one bag that "all the errors went into" DIDN'T get recycled; it's at MY HOUSE and the coins are RED and UNCIRCULATED! I'll set up the camera tomorrow and start uploading some pictures to Flickr. I'm SO happy I bought this bag I could cry! Ben
