Day in the life of a 1940 Penny - Damage & “L” on the rim 1 1

[KevinRK]

Hi I’ve just got started looking at coins and I don’t even know where to start with this one. 

When I first looked at it I assumed it was just beat up but then I thought the L in Liberty looks like it’s on the rim. When I looked closer it looks like the letter “L” is not fully there but merely remnants and the “I” looks more like a blob when examined closely. It seems like more damage would show around these letters if they was simple everyday damage.  
 

Really I have two questions, fist, would someone experienced walk through their thought process on evaluating something like this or if it’s just something not worth looking at because of the condition?

Second, beyond rarity and value I’m fascinated by the likely causes of these deeper gouges.  Seems like a lot of force would be required for some of these and I just can’t come up with reasonable explanations on how coins (not just this coin) get damaged like this in everyday life.  Did someone beat it with a hammer? Run over it with some type of steel wheeled vehicle?  Washing machine with rocks? I can’t see this happening in someone’s pocket or in normal daily transactions. General wear I get but this seems next level.

If there is an area that a more detailed picture would be useful let me know and I’ll get it uploaded  

Thanks

 

Edited December 29, 2023 by KevinRK

[Coinbuf]

Welcome to the forum, your first instinct was the correct one, this coin has led a hard life and what you see is just damage.   As to how it became this damaged nobody knows, damage is just damage however it happens, it has no value over the face value of one cent.

Edited December 29, 2023 by Coinbuf

[l.cutler]

Just to add, L being close to or on the rim is not an error, it is totally normal!  

[Sandon]

On 12/29/2023 at 4:14 PM, KevinRK said:

it’s just something not worth looking at because of the condition

   Welcome to the NGC chat board. The above quotation from your post is the answer that you will receive from virtually all knowledgeable collectors. Respectfully, this is the last sort of coin that nearly anyone would want to collect. (There is a recent fad among a few collectors of collecting "low ball" sets of extremely worn and barely identifiable coins, but these coins must have only circulation wear and be undamaged.)

   This severely damaged 1940 Lincoln cent was ground against hard surfaces that displaced the coin's metal, resulting in its numerous nicks, scratches and gouges. The damage could have resulted from being caught in a piece of machinery, being run over by motor vehicles on a graveled roadway, used to test the hardness of tools, or from various other causes. The exact cause cannot be ascertained. 

On 12/29/2023 at 4:14 PM, KevinRK said:

the L in Liberty looks like it’s on the rim

   The letter "L" was located near the rim to begin with. The rim is supposed to take a disproportionate amount of the friction from wear to which a coin is subjected as it circulates to protect the rest of the coin from wearing too quickly. The rim flattens and widens out as it wears, and on your coin, it may also have been flattened by the pressure to which the coin was subjected that resulted in its damage.  Additionally, the same obverse master die was used from 1919 to 1968 to make the "hubs" and ultimately the working dies from which Lincoln cents were struck. Over the years the whole design spread out. By 1940 this spread was already noticeable. Even uncirculated cents from the mid 1960s appear to have all of the obverse lettering connected to the rim.

   Here are photos of a 1940 Lincoln cent in uncirculated condition with its original mint color. PCGS graded the coin MS 65 RD. This is the sort of coin that most collectors want to own:

[EagleRJO]

It does look like just a damaged cent, including a hit at the "LI" of Liberty which displaced the "L" towards the rim given the coin is 95% copper which is a soft metal.

It's sometimes difficult to identify what caused specific damage as you never know what a coin has been through, like ending up in a parking lot or on an industrial floor which someone maybe decades later picks up.  I would focus more on finding better condition coins in the future.

[powermad5000]

Hello and welcome!

I'll begin my thought on the overall condition of the coin and then get into specific lettering details. While I cannot say 100% for sure, this looks like what would be called a "parking lot" coin to me. In my humble opinion, it took something with significant weight to "crush" Lincoln's head and make it a little more flat, as well as the rims. I am going with this as it would explain the pitting I see. The rough surface of asphalt not being exactly smooth, although we tend to think of it as such, has peaks and valleys. The pressure of a car rolling over the coin would cause these pits (once again in my opinion) by crushing the soft metal of the cent into the peaks of the asphalt, which then later the pits started to corrode. I would say also a car probably came to a stop while on the coin with the rubber of the tire pulling the coin along on the asphalt making some of those deep gouges with the peaks of the asphalt. It seems like it also may have flipped over at some point and sustained the same kind of damage on both sides.

As for the L, @Sandon described that situation well. I would add to that I believe the L also crept closer to the rim as the dies wore out if I am not mistaken and the Mint was notorious for overusing dies especially during the span of later Lincoln Wheat Cents and still all the way to today.

As for other damage, damage is damage. But a coin can be damaged in ways almost too numerous to count. Parking lot coins, dryer coins, hammered coins, vise jobs, acid tests, plating attempts gone wrong, coins cut, holed, bent, whizzed, lost in the mud for a hundred years and corroded, the list is endless. People do all kinds of things to coins. Some make no sense either.

[VKurtB]

Road rash. Gravel travel. Ridden hard and put away damaged. 

[KevinRK]

Wow thanks for all the information and responses, totally appreciated .  I'm stupidly curious about the stories behind the severe everyday damage.