1912 Canadian Large Cent - Poor allow mix AKA Woody I have a lot of copper in my collection mostly coins that have circulated and seen commerce and many on the common side. Here is a very common coin with an uncommon characteristic it has a wood or woody effect do to a poor allow mix when the planchet was produced. I have several earlier US Wheat cents with a similar look. This coin was in a random box I had not sorted and it was sitting in the 2x2 it was purchased in maybe a couple of years. I looked at the coin close under a glass and seen what appears to be PVC contamination the fortunate thing is there does not appear to be any significant damage. I always discard the flips when I buy coins and use safety flips or 2x2's or envelopes. My core coins are stored in snap-locks or Slabs. This coin will go for another acetone bath of a day or so to see if the rest of the crud will come off. The top images are before the one day acetone soak. The reverse had the most green material. after a day in acetone ( use a covered glass container)
I have a woody 1909 Jersey 1/12 shilling that looks so much like that. By the way, after you're done with the acetone, I recommend an application of Verdi-Care. It really works wonders on old coppers.
The woodgrained large cents were fairly common for most of the Geo years and yours really shows up well. Could it be a coincidence that Canada started minting their own coins about then? I've got woodies going back to 1908.