powermad5000

Hello and welcome! The instructions for posting are clear and easily understandable. Please provide clear, fully cropped photos of both sides of the coin along with a question. I cannot give an opinion based upon the photos provided.

Usually don't find a wheatie in the teens. Sweet!

You are correct. I forgot about those darn AirTags. Good additional point! Something we all should also need to start checking when parking at these shows. Do as best you can a check for AirTags on your car.

Even back in the day when coins came back in the "body bags", we still paid the money to NGC to have them looked at. None of us got special treatment or anything for free or discounted from NGC. None of us long term collectors are "keeping secrets close to the heart" or however you referred to that. It is difficult sometimes depending on how a coin was cleaned to be able to actually tell. Not all cleanings have evidence of hairlines. Coins that were "overdipped" will not have these hairlines but will still be considered as cleaned. I don't know how to tell you that it takes years of experience and looking at thousands and tens of thousands of coins that "weall" have done over many years to be able to learn visually something you are asking us to give you a step by step so you can be an instant expert on. And even those of us with a lot of experience still get some of our coins back in slabs with details grades on them even if we know a lot. I find that comment there by you a little insulting to say the least as we are all just volunteers here and do try to help the people coming to these forums. We however cannot take the place of years and years of hands on coin visual experience that cannot be instantly gratified through a step by step list or education course. It is also worthy of note that many decades ago, the practice of cleaning coins was considered an acceptable practice and many people did do this to their coins. In the last couple decades however it has changed that that practice is now viewed as damage to the coin's surface and collectors tastes have changed to see that as damage and are now demanding and seeking out coins of exceptional surface. Your comment here as well as others screams of someone who feels they have been treated unfairly, but the reality is everyone in this forum has experienced the exact same thing you have.

Your Lincoln Wheat cent is environmentally damaged from loss and find, poor storage practices, or circulation abuse, or possibly a combination of all three. It is cull. As noted by @Sandon, any copper coins not properly handled or stored will develop corrosion like this over time. Copper is not as forgiving a metal as is silver or gold and is much more susceptible to corrosion than the two latter. I have a lot of early 1800s copper half and large cents which sadly have environmental damage and corrosion issues. It is difficult to find these cents from this era without these types of issues.

In all of these situations, that particular device would not have been helpful as the thieves waited for the coins to be unattended. It is hard to shoot someone when you don't know anything is happening and return to find items gone and thieves gone as well. I am always leery when going to shows and especially CSNS which is rapidly approaching. Shows are advertised. Criminals can read that and then wait in the parking lot. Last year, at CSNS when I showed up there was zero security in the parking lot when I arrived. When I left, they were near the front entrance, but if you wanted to roll me in the lot as I had to park well away from the entrance it would have been easy for them to do. Thankfully from now on I will be leaving empty. When travelling home from any show, I am always checking to see if anyone is tailing me from the second I leave my parking spot to the time I get home. I do not stop anywhere else. The dealer who's home that got robbed obviously didn't make any stops, but wasn't situationally aware of being followed. Should I get followed, I will drive directly to the nearest police station but I have not had the need to do so yet. And I am just a small fish in a big pond but I trust no one, especially at a place where there is an advertised gathering of plenty of money involved. I am even on high alert when I make movements between my SDB, either bringing slabs to or from. Never know when someone locally is going to try to make a random hit on the way in or has been casing the bank that day and waited for someone to leave the bank carrying something. Point is to always be on high alert when transporting your coins. Being all the smash and grab burglaries in recent years, I am actually surprised more brick and mortar coin shops don't get hit overnight. Thanks for posting this @Jason Abshier! We all need to be vigilant!

I submitted a 1972 S Ike that was in OGP with the Blue Chip because I noticed after all the years I have owned it (I bought it as a kid) somehow the OGP plastic had gotten a hole in it. I figured it had been exposed to the environment for years not knowing how the hole got in the plastic or how long ago that happened. I was disappointed to find it because I take extremely good care of my coins since I was a kid and this was also kept in the envelope it was in when I bought it. I am only guessing but maybe it got there intentionally by one of my exes. I digress. After submitting this for grading, about a year later when I was rearranging my SDB, I noticed it had developed a white spot around something tiny on the surface. I pulled it out and resubmitted it for NCS Conservation, and the spot has been removed and the coin stable since. So as an answer to your question, I did experience an issue with mine.

SCIENCE!!!!!! YES!!!!! This must be proven through science and actual real world experiments! As anyone can post any comment on social media, it must be taken with a grain of salt. I agree with @Fenntucky Mike and @Sandon when it comes to this. We in this forum will even argue over the proposed self grade of a coin posted by an OP. And sometimes people do crossover grading or even cut the coin out of the slab and resubmit to a different TPG after they get their submission back to try to get a better grade. Being grading itself is subjective, it is based upon the subject. Whoever made that statement in my opinion is mixing apples and oranges. Every coin has different surface issues (or not), and minor nicks and scratches in different places. It is not accurate for the person who posted that to make that comment unless the EXACT same coin was submitted through him or herself and then resubmitted by a dealer and even in that case it would be graded by two completely different graders who might have a different subjective view of the coin in hand and still assigning it two different grades in the end. I would assume the dealer simply had better quality coins to submit in the first place.

This is listed as $1.00 in the price guide but in reality is worth about 30c. I had my reasons which I don't need to explain. I don't think the term "hot" will be applicable in the timeframe you suggested. I say that based upon sheer mintage numbers. I think there will be a market for the highest end and Top Pop moderns (as there is now), but being I am still finding Lincoln Wheat cents in cash register change more than 75 years since they were struck, I don't think people will be scrambling for a 1986 Lincoln Memorial cent that there were more than 100x made as compared to the Lincoln Wheats I get in change dated 1945 or 1947.

Most certainly either environmental damage or an attempt at artificial toning gone horribly wrong.

You need scales that weigh to 0.01g. Scales that weigh to 0.1g will either round up or down depending on the weight of the item which isn't helpful for weighing coins. Also keep in mind a scale that has lost accuracy will weigh the calibration weight and say PASS but still gives incorrect weights. The scale I use is so accurate and sensitive that you need to turn off the fans in the room and also the heat or AC as well. It can read the air movement of your hand passing by or your breathing. I use the wind shield it came with to get 100% accurate weights.

We can argue about impaired proofs all night, and you have a case on that end, but I still don't see your coin being a proof. I don't think the strike is commensurate with the strike of a proof Morgan.

I do think the coin was struck from worn dies and the OP thinks incorrectly that effect is a broadstrike. What I do see that nobody has mentioned, I think there is quite a set of depressions on Abe's cheek, next to his eye, and a large one on his head and hair. That looks to be struck through to me as the design in the hair is still present. I doubt this was struck from rotated dies. I have not really seen any of these cents with a rotated die error and I think the modern presses have dies with a pin or keyway to keep the dies from rotating if I am not mistaken.

I am not even seeing a strike through. I see some damage and staining and I think the area the OP is referring to is the plating starting to bubble up near the rim and will eventually chip off. I see this cent developing severe zinc rot in the near future. It also could just be the photo, but I think the obverse around the date and mintmark has split plate doubling.

Hello and welcome to the forum! I think this is a vise job. Another coin was pressed into this one which explains why it is also bent.

Same. I see a pretty deep gouge with displaced metal around the edges. Post mint damage.

Most certainly not a proof. The details would be crisp, especially in the hair and the eagle on the reverse. It would also have more contrast and frost. There were only 930 proofs struck for this year. Your coin shows signs of a normal strike although probably struck from a recently changed set of dies. There were limited proofs struck and back when they were struck, unlike today, I seriously doubt a collector would have put their Morgan proof into circulation.

I have a hard time with the answer to this question being what do we define as a collector? Is not someone who bought a Whitman album when the statehood quarters were released and filled such said album as they were released, now having a full statehood quarter album not a collector even if they have collected no other coins? I think they would be considered a "casual" collector. It would be difficult to pin down a number on these people as they will never submit a single coin to a TPG, nor will they ever attend a coin show, but by technical definition are still a collector. You also have amateur collectors, experienced collectors, and advanced collectors. These would comprise a number that could possibly be pinned down through submissions (but not all collectors submit and I am sure there are still many collectors with extensive collections that are raw). I would say there is a high percentage of casual collectors which outnumber greatly the amateur, experienced, and advanced combined. To me, it would be impossible to accurately assign a specific number to the posted question.

Back to the question at hand and topic of this thread, I will throw out a different tack. I put this back at 1960. By 1960, the cent had firmly established mintage numbers in the billions and combined P and D nickels, dimes, and quarters were all in the hundreds of millions. Even the Franklin half was in the tens of millions combined P and D. To me this puts numbers so high that basically anyone could have a great specimen of each denomination and obtained at face value, thus where I think I would call it the beginning of the era of moderns.

Yes. It is bad. NEVER clean your coins! Also understand that while you may have received a coin, any coin can be cleaned and any coin with a number of decades of circulation has a chance of it being cleaned long before you obtained it. I personally don't think the coin in this thread was cleaned. The copper plating doesn't necessarily turn chocolate brown all at once.

Stick around here. You will learn a lot! I enjoy learning here.

It is quite relevant. Once a coin has achieved MS status, it is considered as not having any wear. MS is where the number of bag marks, scratches, hits, and other imperfections are scrutinized and counted. And it also depends on the series once again. Take Morgan dollars for example. There are none graded MS 70. There is a few dozen or so graded MS 69. There is a few hundred or so graded at MS 68. For most collectors MS 67 is all they will be able to afford to collect and at that grade level they are fantastic. MS 66 of any coin will be only a few minor scratches and MS 67 will maybe only have two very minor imperfections or typically only one. MS 68 will probably not have any visible imperfections in the fields or main details with a small scratch hiding somewhere on the coin and literally comes down to the quality of the strike (and I am sure some will say mint luster). ALL grading has to take into account the entire coin. That is the obverse, reverse, details, fields, and the rim and edge. A coin with a reeded edge with a crushed reed should appropriately get lowered a grade point. Rim dings must be taken into account as coins with significant rim dings or dents in the rim or edge can end up with a Details grade for Rim Damage. When I am self grading coins, I always try to keep in mind all the things that earn a coin a Details grade. Mostly because I try to avoid buying impaired specimens, but it helps me to check all aspects of the coin including the rims and edge. Not an exhaustive list, but a list of the more common issues that get a coin Details graded are whizzed, polished, wheel mark, rim damage, bent, scratched, corrosion, cleaned, spot removed, environmental damage, repaired, tooled, holed, altered color, and less common would be mount removed. Plated and altered surface will get returned in a body bag along with authenticity unverifiable or not genuine (counterfeit). When self grading any coin, everything is important and everything needs to be taken into consideration.

Hello and welcome to the forum! It looks to me like it possibly had some plating blisters to begin with that actually broke open exposing the zinc core to rot in agreeance with @Just Bob as is common with these cents having years in circulation and questionable history with exposure to environmental damage.

I think you have a VAM 5 which is a Micro O and is typically scarce for this year and mintmark. I appreciate the collage and full photos. Much better than most people post!

Hello and welcome to the forum! I think it is an impaired proof. Looks like maybe it has some environmental damage since it is just plain loose and not even in a cardboard flip. There were over 1.2 million proofs made for this year and I think you could locate a much better example already graded for probably less than you will spend to submit this coin to have it slabbed. On the scale of proofs, this would be on the low end as it is not even Cameo or Ultra Cameo. And if you submitted this coin and it returns as Proof Details, basically all of its value will have gone out the window and your grading costs will all be a loss.