1944 S Lincoln Cent

[railroad-migration]

I have a 1944 S Lincoln Cent which weighs 3.25 grams.

 

Does anybody have any ideas concerning the weight. Foreign belgian planchet ?

 

Let me know.

 

Thanks

[WoodenJefferson]

1/10th of 1 gram overage was acceptable back in 1944?

[FishyOne]

Is the coin in MS or AU condition? Is your scale accurate to the 0.01 gram or is it one that jumps in 0.05 increments? Did you weigh a known sample that weighs 3.11g to confirm your scale's accuracy?

 

If the coin is 0.14 grams over nominal weight (4.5%) then it is indeed out of tolerance. If the coin is XF or below and weighs 3.25g then it's far out-of-tolerance and possibly on a thick or improper planchet.

[railroad-migration]

Weight has been verified at 3.25 grams. MS BN grade.

 

 

Reverse at 30X:

 

1. A large " 25 " is visible.

2. " DOLLAR " in a curved form.

 

I've searched foreign planchets by the US mint and the only foreign cent at 3.25 grams is for a 1970 Belgium planchet.

 

Let me know what you think.

 

Thanks

[Conder101]

3.25 grams is out of tolerance for a US cent of 1944, but just barely. Spec weight was 3.11 grams +/- .13 grams so maximum legal weight was 3.24 grams. Your coin at 3.25 is .01 grams out of tolerance or 0.3% overweight. Most likely what you have is a slightly over weight cent.

 

What does this mean

Reverse at 30X:

 

1. A large " 25 " is visible.

2. " DOLLAR " in a curved form.

 

Do you have images? And if you have to go to 30X to see it there is a good chance of your eyes playing tricks on you

[railroad-migration]

I agree. Sometimes our eyes want to see what our minds want it to be.

 

At 10X, there appears to be the number 25 at "OF" on the Reverse and the

word/letters "DOLLAR" in a curved form/format under EPLUR. At 30X, it actually appears to be that. I agree with you that appears and actually are two different things.

 

Thanks for your weight info. Great information.

 

I've decided to send this coin along with several others to NGC for grading. Will let you know.

 

Thanks

[johnny9434]

got any pics?

[DWLange]

Your coin, though it's an S-Mint, may be similar to Pollock-2078, which has the normal composition for a 1944(P) cent but is slightly thicker than it's supposed to be. Pollock gives weights in grains that convert into 4.00 grams or 4.24 grams, respectively. It's not a stretch to imagine that one weighing 3.25 grams could fall into this category.

 

These were included in the Pollock book as possible patterns, but the current thinking is that they are simply normal production coins that were struck on strip that was not rolled to the proper thickness. Thus, they are mint errors and not patterns or trials. It was only because they occurred during wartime that any reason existed to link them to experimental pieces.

 

Roger Burdette's book on WWII emergency coins probably references these pieces, but I don't have time to skim through it. Roger, what say you?

[Conder101]

I took a look through rogers book and I didn't see anything on experimental 1944 cents. According to the book the last of the metal cent experiment ended in Nov of 43 and all of the shellcase experiments used 1943 dies. None of them exceeded 48 grains in weight, the same standard weight as a cent.

 

Pollock gives weights in grains that convert into 4.00 grams or 4.24 grams, respectively. It's not a stretch to imagine that one weighing 3.25 grams could fall into this category.

I would think that it would be a big stretch for a 3.25 gram coin to be in the category of a coin that is supposed to weigh 4 to 4.25 grams. That's a 23 to 30% difference. As I said assuming it is just a slightly overweight planchet it is only 0.3% overweight. A mint error and an exceedingly minor one at that.