Searching Bags of Lincoln Cents

[cpm9ball]

Not long ago, I mentioned that I bought 3 - $50 bags from an acquaintance. A few days ago, I started searching through the bag of 1980-P. Now I know why Billy has so much fun going through rolls of pennies. And, I also learned how time-consuming, sore neck and all, it can be to search through 5000 of these little suckers at a time. So far, I've only gone through $10 or so, and my "finds" have slowed me down to a crawl. I had searched about 200 when I found a neat abnormality. At first, I wasn't sure if it was a strike-through of a dropped element or if it was a die clash. So, I set it aside and plodded onward. Whenever I found a die crack, die gouge or filled die chip, I would make a Post-It note and set it aside. You never know when you might make another discovery that could link them together and it would be a real pain to have to go back to search them all over again if you didn't catalog all of the minor abnormalities. However, it really does slow you down because you find yourself examining each and every coin, obverse and reverse, with a loupe. It's also quite a strain on my eyes, too, because they are so much smaller than the quarters, halves and dollars that I am accustomed to searching.

 

Anyway, back to the strike-through/die clash(?). I spotted an unusual mark between the 2nd and 3rd columns of the Memorial on the left side. At first I thought it was the ghost of Lincoln prowling through the building because it looked strangely like his head and shoulders, but I realized that it was an inverted "Y" from LIBERTY. It is rotated a couple degrees counterclockwise. I couldn't tell if it was a strike-through or a die clash. It's just small enough to make it hard to tell if it is raised or incuse, and the raised columns make it even harder to try to view it from a near-horizontal vantage point. I had been leaning toward thinking it was a strike-through, but then, I found another, and another, and another. So far, after going through ONLY 1000, I have 24 of them. Now, I am beginning to think that it is a die clash rather than a strike-through. It seems illogical to be anything else.

 

Think about it! A dropped element is formed when grease, dust particles, lint, etc. are compacted into an incuse area of the die and it eventually loosens to fall onto the face of the opposite die. Then and there, in this hardened state, it is impressed into the planchet. It's not unusual for this to happen, but it is improbable that the dropped element could withstand the pressure exerted by the presses and not be pulverized very quickly. It is highly unlikely that the dropped element could remain intact after striking that many planchets.

 

Besides this die clash, I've also found about 100 other filled-die chips and die gouges that I consider of particular interest. Most of the die cracks are of little importance unless I can tie them to some of the others errors as a progression. I have no idea if I will find more of the die clashes in the 4000 remaining cents. I do know that I will keep plodding along and my eyes and neck will be very, very tired.

 

Billy, if you're reading this, I'm wondering if you are salivating by now. I'm posting a photo, but I can't seem to perform the "magic" with my camera that you can with yours. Although you can't see the complete outline of the inverted "Y" (between the 2nd and 3rd colimns from the left) in the photo, you can with a loupe.

 

 

Chris

[Die Varieties]

Chris, you have a die clash. The inverted and incuse letter "Y" of LIBERTY is the classic example of one. Depending on how deep the dies impacted each other, less or more letters of LIBERTY will show as well as portions of Lincoln and his outline. Some can be pretty wicked looking.

 

I understand your soreness -- welcome to the club buddy. I liken it to a person who has never run before and decides one morning to run the marathon. Well -- we know how that goes don't we?

 

However, I do not use a loupe in searching. I will get absolutely no where with a loupe. I use a stereoscope. Now before one starts thinking I use some extreme high magnification to search coins -- I don't. I search at 10x. Under the scope I can see the entire coin. It takes me about 1 second -- flip to reverse and another second. That's all I need. Since I have been searching cents for 15+ years, my eyes are trained to spot the most minor change in detail. Plus the stereoscope is 3-D. I'm seeing the entire coin not just as width and height, but with depth. I can go thru $50 a day easy. I wrap as I go -- when done, I have $50 already wrapped and ready to head back to the bank. Now am I advocating everybody needs to get a stereoscope -- nope, not at all. I use one because of the intense searching I do and for the micro-photography and writing articles for various publications. I advocate -- you do what you want to do.

 

I went thru a mint sealed 1970-S cent bag years ago. Did it in a few hours. In that bag was one small date, all the other 4999 coins were the large date! I'm not BSing. Amazing that only one was in the bag. Made me think that the bag could have been searched and one was missed and then the bag resealed to look like the Mint sealed it originally. That's probably the case -- but I don't know. It also had some minor DDO's and I made pretty good profit out of it. But I was hoping to find the major DDO -- but, no joy. That's the way it goes. It's the thrill of the hunt.

 

I just came across out of a circulated roll the 1999 1c Type-II (Wide AM) reverse. Gem BU/Red one too! I already had one in my personal collection so I put it up on eBay auction. It's running now -- no, I won't link it here because that would be spamming, but right now it's at $275. My investment in the coin -- one cent! (and of course the eBay fees). Now a lot of people tell me it take time to do what you do. That is true -- but, it takes time in no matter what I do!

 

In the upcoming Sep/Oct issue of the online DVN newsletter, I am writing an article giving pointers on searching. I get just about everyday e-mails from collectors wanting to know how is it that I find this stuff in circulation and if I could give them any pointers. Plus there are major new discoveries, more educational articles, mint errors, coming in left and right. This next issue will be huge!!! So -- stay tuned.

 

Everybody have a great fourth!!!!

 

Hang in there Chris -- it gets easier .... oh and be careful, it can get very addictive!

[Die Varieties]

Chris, here's a clash overlay of the reverse for example purposes. One can see the inverted "Y" in the second bay.

 

[MAULEMALL]

Chris, here's a clash overlay of the reverse for example purposes. One can see the inverted "Y" in the second bay.

 

I love when you guys do that

[Die Varieties]

"love when you guys do that."

 

You or anyone can do these types of overlays on any denomination anytime you want. Nothing hard about it. Just flip-flip on image, invert 180 and then copy over to the other image, make it a layer transparency and bingo.

[MunkyMan95]

What program do you use Billy? Can I do it in MS paint?

[MunkyMan95]

I've also got coreldraw, but I don't see anywhere where I can make the second image transparent?

[MunkyMan95]

Ok I've tried about a dozen times and I can't figure it out. I downloaded the images form the Mint's website, inverted one, and don't know how to make the second transparent???

[Die Varieties]

Sorry I don't use either one of those photo programs. I use either Adobe PhotoShop or Adobe Illustrator, both are essentially the same.

 

You can go to www.adobe.com web site. Check out Photoshop or Illustrator programs. Both have a free trial download. If you get either one let me know and I will walk you thru it. Once you can do it on Photoshop or Illustrator programs -- it's probably close to being the same type of steps on the photo programs you have now.

[cladking]

[q]"I went thru a mint sealed 1970-S cent bag years ago. Did it in a few hours. In that bag was one small date, all the other 4999 coins were the large date!"[/q]

 

I wouldn't be surprised if this happens more than we think.

 

It will only be caught if the loner is something of real interest rather than just another run-of-the-mill coin. I've not searched a large number of bags but I found a loner like this one time. Perhaps it's caused by a few coins being cleaned up and thrown into the product stream or maybe it's mere coincidence.

 

...Or maybe it really is a rare occurance and has happened only twice.

[James_OldeTowne]

Yep, it's a die-clash, and a classic at that. Many of these coins show the columns clashed over Lincoln's portrait on the obverse, and coins like that used to be marketed as "Lincoln Behind Bars" in the 1970s and 80s. They were actually pretty popular, and I imagine more than a few collectors have tried to assemble sets of such Lincolns.

 

Great stuff!!

 

James