Good morning. I generally try to preface any questions with a showing of respect to the vets, because I am relatively new, and I appreciate those who have been in the game for a long time yet still carry themselves as decent, helpful, and mindful of the a fact that everyone was a novice at one point. Having said that, any opinions on these coins are much appreciated. One (1950) is just a toned coin that I've had for a long time, actually bought it at a yard sale years ago and was told it was a naturally toned coin at the time of purchase. The price was low enough so that I didn't really feel inclined to question it, plus I liked the looks of it regardless, but I am curious, does it appear to be a natural tone? The pictures probably don't do it justice, I took one outdoors under clouds, the other indoors under incandescent lights. It has almost like a vignette style background on the obverse, the reverse, as you can see, is nothing special. Other coin is a 1955 penny, and I know that there's a double dye error associated w/ this year, and I've found it hard to detect that error. I mean, with some, it's easy to see, very prominent, but I've seen coin collectors sharing double dyed 1955 pennies where any evidence of the error was so subtle that it's practically undetectable. This one here, it looks like the last 5 in the date has some traces of double dye towards the right of the 5, but I don't know if that's something else entirely. Thanks for your time.
The 1950 was probably cleaned at some point in it's life and in starting to tone again. I don't feel the surfaces are original. The 1955 is called a Poor Mans Doubled Die. They have what's called machine doubling. This is an ad from years ago that probably helped with the name for these. Below that is an image of what the real deal looks like.
@Blue Lue Boyle Once you've seen a photo of the (famous) 1955 Doubled Die, like the one Larry posted, you will never mistake another for it. Chris
Larry, is that the one you showed me at FUN a couple of years ago? Did you ever resubmit it? What did it come back as?
I was going to hand it to PCGS at the show but backed out. It just looked happy in the holder it's in. Don't think PCGS would give it a 64. I did have Todd shoot these.
I think OP is probably referring to the "poor man's doubled die" - I believe the doubling is around the ear. (oh, ldhair said that. That's what I get for typing before reading! Sorry!) The toner is pretty! This one falls into that category of "just what exactly is natural toning?" It may not have been artificially toned on purpose, but it was clearly exposed to something other than what most would consider to induce "natural toning". If you like it, don't worry about it - there's no use in it. I'll tell you this much - I don't think any TPG would certify it anything but "questionable color" or AT or environmental damage or what not. They take coins that have naturally toned in paper envelopes from years and years ago and argue them. So, at this moment, don't count on the TPGs to see your coin as NT. But who cares, if you love it, you love it and that's good enough. For what it's worth, I love it too!
Doesn't matter whether in person or online, I cannot look at that coin error without feeling dizzy and sick to my stomach.
