I'm having a hard time identifying this 1981 Penny as Type 1 or Type 2. Hopefully the scan is good enough one of you can identify it... The other question is that this coin appears to be dirty, as if it has been touched. It's hard to see in the scan but if you look carefully you can see that there is something on the coin, mainly on Lincoln's head, and similarly on the reverse on the building. Perhaps someone touched it once. Question - what effect does this have on the grade?
Your coin looks like a type 1 to me. A "circulation strike" coin usually won't be graded above MS-63 if it has a fingerprint. I do not know if this applies to proofs or not. Charlie
It doesnt look like a fingerprint to me. The only thing I would reccommend doing is to soak it in pure acetone and see if the marks dissolve.
It definitely appears to be a Type I "Filled S"! The film on the coin is called hazing and it is quite common on Proof Coins after a few years! The exact cause of hazing is not certain but apparently bad enviroment (stored in hot and cold enviroments with too much moisture) has something to do with it. Proof Set holders are not totally airtight and to keep down the possible occurrence of hazing, the Proof Sets should be stored in a cool and dry location and it a airtight container with the drying packets (not sure what they are called) inside to remove and keep out any moisture. Frank
There is some haze on the coin, but that coin has seen some rough handling too - that's not a fingerprint those are surface marks where the coin has rubbed against something. It affects the grade greatly - I'd say it would go PF60 at best.
That picture isn't good enough for us to make a diffinitive judgement on this coin being a T1 or T2 coin. We'd need a close-up of the Mint Mark, like this: See the rounded serifs? that is what distinguishes it from this: This type 1 has the same shape mintmark (clear S/filled S is a misnomer) as the T2 above, but the serifs are not so bulbuous. Hope that helps, some. These tend to be difficult to differentiate without high magnification (my pics are at 60x magnification).
