Picked this up on eBay!

Nice - Do a good job and I'll give you a clinker award

Ruben

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Considering the Philadelphia mint makes the dies for both Philadelphia and San Francisco and the die shop runs year round this makes no sense. They would be making reverse dies for the following year and could simply have used some of those. There would be no reason to request proof dies back from San Francisco, plus the wide AM cents show no trace of a proof surface.

And what would the San Francisco mint do with a master hub or master die? They had no die shop, no annealing furnace and could not have used them to make dies. As to grinding off the mintmark and then adding a S, you can't add an S to a hub, and to grind it out of a die would render the die almost unusable because much of the shallow details would also be removed. Also the added S would not match the S on all the other cents for the year. I have never heard of a phantom D proof cent. (Are you sure you aren't confusing this with the "phantom" D and S mint set coins from a few years earlier? those were caused because Philadelphia didn't make a no mintmark cent master hub. They made the D master hub, created the D Master Dies, then ground the D off the master hub and used it to make the Philadelphia master dies.) Now having them ship reverse dies might be possible, but since they would have to be shipped to Canada first for polishing it really wouldn't help their production schedule

A much simpler reason for there existence would be that as the Philadelphia mint was making reverse dies for both Philadelphia and San Francisco, one or more of the dies got switched and a proof rev was left in Philadelphia mixed with the business strike dies and a business strike die got shipped off to Canada with the rest of the Proof dies for polishing. Since the same procedures are used each year, it is possible for it to happen more than once. This same scenario is the reason for the business strike 1999 W 1/4 and 1/2 oz gold eagles, and almost certainly the 1990 no mintmark proof cent. It happened back in the 1950's as well when proof design Franklin halves were used to make business strike halves. There are probably other examples. Since this apparently can happen from time to time it would make sense that the wrong reverse dies may exist on other years of business strike and proof cents. I've said that since they were discovered, but most roll searchers only look for what is known and not what may be. So it took a long time for the 96 wide AM to be discovered.

 

Conder,

That is the information as I know it! There were several articles detailing exactly what happened and when I get time, i will hunt them down and post links to them here.


Frank

 

Ruben,

Okay! I was finally able to get some pictures of my "Wide AM" Cent Collection! I know the pictures aren't the best. The coins are generally AU to BU and quite a few are dirty as they were plucked from circulation. Pictures 2 through 4 are of one of the 1998-P "Wide AM" Cents.


Frank

 

Ruben,

The next coin is one of the 2000-P "Wide AM" Cents!


Frank

 

Conder,

I was apparently incorrect in my information! However, I was going on the information that I heard from Collectors and Coin Dealers but I am sure that I also read the information somewhere. As with most stories that break too soon, rumors and mis-information abound and are eventually corrected. It really matters not how they were produced, it only matters that they exist! While the "Wide AM" Varieties can be found in circulation, in BU rolls, in Mint Sets or in already assembled Collections, the "Close AM" Varieties can be found in Proof Sets, already assembled Collections which contain Proof Cents and possibly in put together rolls of Proof Cents!

http://www.numismaster.com/ta/numis/Article.jsp?ad=article&ArticleId=6075


Frank

 

Frank - that is Great! Can you see the Wide AM right away after practice? Or do you find you need to compare them. What is happening on the stairs?

Ruben

 

Conder,

I was incorrect on which coin sometimes supposedly exhibits a ghost "D" Mintmark! It was reported that some of the 1998-P "Wide AM" Cents and not the 1998-S "Close AM" Cents sometimes exhibit a ghost or phantom "D" Mintmark.

http://koinpro.tripod.com/Articles/_Ty-2_Reverse_Cent_Varieties.htm

Scroll down the page to the article under the big banner that reads as follows:

See The 1999-S Ty-1 Close AM Proof Varieties Here:
1999-S Close AM Rev Proof 1c



Frank

 

Ruben,

I no longer need to compare them! It is sort of like finding several 1955-P "Doubled Die -Die #1" Cents. Once you have found a few, the details are stuck in your head and the details pop out right away when looking at the coins with a loupe.


Frank

 

can you show me the comparison? I'm looking througha few hundred cents right now

 

Now that makes more sense, and I did cover how the Phantom D could appear on Philadelphia cents in my original post. Usually they were found in the mint sets, but since all of the Philadelphia cents came fom dies that were created from amaster hub with the D ground off, the "Phantom" D could possibly show on any early state die. (It won' show on all of them because the traces of the D could be polished off of either a master die befo it created working hubs or the working die before it struck coins.)

 

Ruben,

Well, these are not the best pictures but the following is the differences to look for when determing if a 1999-P Lincoln Cent is a "Wide AM" or "Close AM" Variety.

If the pictures are not good enough to determine the difference between the two varieties, then click on the link below.

http://www.lincolncentresource.com/wideams.html


Frank

 

That is PERFECT and thanks a lot Frank. I learned a lot from you today! Your a swell guy

Ruben

 

Frank - Thanks for the great thread and taking the time to teach me about this great coin!

Ruben