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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Fallguy, post: 2667770, member: 84739&quot;]Well maybe, though I think some depends how far into the esoteric you wish to look. First, agreed with the mint mark placement, as long as it&#039;s not touching the date or design elements, just about anything goes.&nbsp; As for any possible doubling, I can see what appears to be some extra thickness on some lettering on the left coin, which COULD indicate doubling . . . but what class of doubling? From what I&#039;m seeing (but I don&#039;t have the coins in-hand) I think only one really fits the bill and that would be a Class III or &quot;Design Hub Doubling&quot;. This may be an interesting artifact (if artifact at all) of what really caught my eye when I first looked at these coins, and that is I believe the two coins reflect, at a minimum, 2 different ODVs (Obverse Design Varieties)! And if the path I&#039;m going down has any merit at all, then it&#039;s likely that one or both of these coins (most likely the one on the right) are also transitional.</p><p><br /></p><p>First let me say, what I am positing here is based on the work(s) of James Wiles, Ph.D. (which I hope I&#039;m not butchering too much) and the materials contained in 3 of his &quot;e-books&quot; (The Lincoln Cent Doubled Die; Lincoln Cent RPM and most importantly; the CONECA Die Variety e-book). In brief, every so often the US Mint makes changes to a die&#039;s design; most are minor and are seldom noted. Often these modifications are made to the Master Hub (MH) at the same time that a new date series is being impressed on them, and ever so often a change is made on a Master Die (MD). Then once in a great while two of these altered MHs or promoted MDs end up being used to make a Working Hub (WH) or Working Die (WD).&nbsp; Whatever the case and however this may have occurred, the end result can be a coin that has the features of two different ODVs (or RDVs as the case may be, though these are much rarer).</p><p><br /></p><p>Dies for years 1969 through 1971 were derived from MH-24. The major design change (from MH-23 to MH-24) was the enhancement of the portrait, though there were additional changes such as a more inward pointing lower serif of the &quot;9&quot;. For 1970 MH-24 was altered to MH-25, which produced the &quot;Large Date&quot; coin for that year. In addition MH-24 was also altered to make MH-26, thereby producing the 1970 &quot;Small Date&quot; coin, AND in addition, the inner serif of the &quot;9&quot; in the date was made more pointed than the Large Date &quot;9&quot;, and pointed in a SE direction (please remember this salient). For 1971, MH-27 (again basis MH-24) was made whose major feature was a re-engraved lower throat and, I believe, the inner serif of the &quot;9&quot; was made to point more inward. Also in 1971, a MH-28 was made that also re-engraved the bowtie. However, this MH may have had as its basis an enhanced WD, but a WD produced by MH-28, or 27 or even MH-26; the answer is not clear to me, but could have a significant role in what is possibly being observed in these two coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>Step back for a moment and look at these two coins again . . . it seems to me that there is a distinct difference in the lower portion of the throat; the bowties appear to be different; the apparent difference in the spread of the lettering has already been noted (and at this point it is good to remember how Class III or &quot;Design Hub Doubling&quot; occurs:&nbsp; It can only occur when two or more design varieties are in production at the same time, or in other words, you start with a hub with one design and then a hub with a slightly different design is used for the subsequent hubbing. The resultant WD will then end up striking a &quot;transitional&quot; coin; most or all of the intended ODV will be present, but it also may have some artifact from a previous alteration).&nbsp; So back to the inspection of the coins in the instant case . . . while I would need to have both coins in-hand to be sure, it appears to me that the inner serif of the &quot;9&quot; on the coin to the right, is pointed more to the SE than its comparable on the left, where it appears that the inner serif of that &quot;9&quot; is pointing almost directly East! The implication would be that the coin on the right is a transitional as it carries the design of the inner serif of the &quot;9&quot; as seen on MH-26.</p><p><br /></p><p>But wait, wait that would mean that the coin on the right is the &quot;transitional&quot; coin, which would mean that the coin on the left is not doubled.&nbsp; Well, yes and no . . . yes it would mean that the right hand coin is &quot;transitional&quot;, BUT the coin on the left is whatever the coin on the left is. One would have to look at that coin against other apparently &quot;normal&quot; 1971 S cents; one would also look for any other indicators that doubling has occurred.&nbsp; And last but not least one would have to be starting from a premise that my assumptions are in any way valid. I mean it makes sense to me based on what I have read, but I&#039;ve obviously over-simplified this overall concept . . . possibly to the point of making the analyses useless. And we (or I) have to recognize that I&#039;m getting a little long in the tooth and it is getting late; I may wake up tomorrow, look at this and say, &quot;What the Hell is this gibberish!&quot;&nbsp; However, I would prefer that this effort provides you with some alternative ideas on how you may want to look at this, and other head scratchers you will come across in the future, as apposed to putting the coins on a shelf some where and thereby risk missing out on something interesting that was right at the tips of your fingers, if you had only stretched a little further.&nbsp; LORD, it is getting late, say what!!!</p><p><br /></p><p>Semper Fidelis (and PS, I would really love to see a couple of good pictures of the reverse of those two coins (identifying them in the context of their display today))<img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /><img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /><img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />![/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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