Going through a bag of nickels I saw something I’d never noticed before. There were 3 ‘79Ds with identical filled in mintmarks. I was of the opinion that filled in letters and numbers were the result of post mint damage but it would appear this happened at the mint. or am I wrong? Again? is this a fairly common issue and of no relevance? should I hold on to them or see what I can buy for $.15?
The little post on the mintmark broke off when they were applying the mintmark. That would account for the filled "D".
@Chip Kirkpatrick As Mr. P. stated, the die was damaged. After striking many, many planchets, the post that forms the center of the "D" broke away allowing coin metal to flow into the void. While it is possible that more than one coin could have been produced with this damaged die before it was discovered, there is no way of knowing if these three coins came from the same production run unless you can find markers on the obverse of all three coins that are identical.
