How common are die rotations?

[jtryka]

I recently upgraded a 1922-D in my album and I decided to put the old one on eBay, and when I listed it I noticed about a 30-degree rotation. How common is this? I was just wondering since it seems to be fairly common on older coins (19th century) but is much less common on later coins. Here is a link to the Auction to see what I am talking about.

[jeh46544]

I've seen a few in newer coins, but most I've seen are in older coins. I wouldn't say they're too common.

 

BTW, you should put the coin on a raised piece of glass or plexi-glass with a mirror under it and take the picture to get the best results with die rotations. Just some friendly advice.

[jtryka]

That's a good idea Joe, unfortunately I don't have either of those things in my house!

[TomB]

One of our board members, RotatedRainbows, has his own web site devoted to rotated dies.

[Hoot]

Jeff - Rotated dies are very common in some series, I'm not so sure about Lincolns. However, in buffalo nickels, they are the rule and not the exception. The degree of rotation become interesting when it gets to 45 degrees and greater. Same rule of thumb for any series. As for Jeffs, I commonly find coins with 20 to 35 degrees rotation, but not often beyond that.

 

Hoot

[RotatedRainbows]

Slight die rotations are fairly common among most series and Lincoln's are no exception, as stated above a coin needs to be at least 45° to really be worth noticing and more like 90° or more to really start to add any real premium. Once in a while someone will pay a small premium for less then 90° but on average the more rotation the more interest. I have a new URL for my web site http://www.RotatedDies.com/ as I am moving it off geo cities to get rid of those annoying pop ups and I also have started to update all the old scans with new high resolution photos. If you have book marked my site in the past please up date with the new URL. A special thanks to TomB for posting the original URL.