New BIE Discovery

rmpsrpms

My main collecting interest is in searching BU rolls of Lincoln Wheat Cents for varieties. I am credited with a few RPM and DDO discoveries, and also have found many interesting errors. One area that is getting more popular among the many new variety searchers is BIE die breaks. I have made a few discoveries in this area as well, and am especially fond of the 1955-S issue since it has several interesting BIEs, including the largest one known for the whole series, the "Sausage".

Most recently I've been looking for early stages of BIEs, basically just die cracks around the letters of LIBERTY, in hopes of finding some that are precursors to the full BIEs that folks search for. I got lucky in a recently-purchased 55-S roll, and found a precursor to the Cohen B906 BIE, Cuds On Coins LDB4-1955S-006B 4DH+, which fills the upper 2/3 of the space between B and E. Below I'll show an image of the B906, followed by the new discovery coin, which I will call BA905 after Cohen's naming convention.

I also made an animation flipping between the two to help see how the break progressed. Most likely it didn't make a smooth transition, but had a big chip all of a sudden.

B906

BA905

Transition from BA905 to B906

Steven59

Interesting - great pictures.

Jacques_Loungecoque

I always appreciate world class numismatic research and scholarship and YOUR work is top notch. Your pics are also outstanding.

OAKSTAR

You should start a thread: Post Your BIE's.

BLUEJAYWAY

Nice work. I remember collecting those when I started error collecting. Had Jean Cohen's book as well. Disappeared in the mail many years ago. Wish I still had the book.

rmpsrpms

@Jacques_Loungecoque said:
I always appreciate world class numismatic research and scholarship and YOUR work is top notch. Your pics are also outstanding.

Thank you very much! I do a lot of roll searching and often find "interesting" things like this.

@OAKSTAR said:
You should start a thread: Post Your BIE's.

Maybe so, but while they are getting more popular, they are still a niche within a niche, so maybe only 0.1% of the folks here would have any interest.

@BLUEJAYWAY said:
Nice work. I remember collecting those when I started error collecting. Had Jean Cohen's book as well. Disappeared in the mail many years ago. Wish I still had the book.

I have 3 copies of Cohen's book! Always looking for them at a good price. CONECA owns the copyright to the book but they have not re-published it. Wish they would just make it public domain so it can be more easily shared with the numismatic community.

These days the reference for BIEs and similar "die errors" is the Cuds On Coins website. CoC uses a modifed Hardy system rather than Cohen, but does cross-reference to Cohen. You can find the BIE listings here:

http://cuds-on-coins.com/lincoln-cent-bies/

The B906 is listed by CoC as "LDB4-1955S-006A 4DH+" and can be found about halfway down the page here:

http://cuds-on-coins.com/ldb4-1955s-2/

OAKSTAR

@rmpsrpms said:

@OAKSTAR said:
You should start a thread: Post Your BIE's.

Maybe so, but while they are getting more popular, they are still a niche within a niche, so maybe only 0.1% of the folks here would have any interest.

I have quite a few.

rmpsrpms

I have shot a few BIEs using my High Resolution technique. One that I'm always looking for is the 56-D RPM #1 in Late Die State, which sports a full BIE. If anyone has one of these in BU, I'm a strong buyer! Anyway, here's an XF example:

https://easyzoom.com/image/295182/album/0/4?mode=manage

I mentioned the "Sausage" BIE in my OP, and indeed I have shot this one in High Resolution as well, see here:

https://easyzoom.com/image/277499/album/0/4?mode=manage

BTW, the Sausage is actually a Late Die State of RPM #4. The RPM is hard to see by the time the die is so worn, but indeed it is there if you look hard enough.

I made an animation of the progression of RPM#4 from EDS to LDS with BIE. You can see it here:

http://www.macrocoins.com/progressions.html

Same page shows progression from Cohen BA149 to what I call "B150", which is another of my BIE discoveries. Turns out the BA149 continued to be used, and chipped-out to a larger BIE before it was retired. It must not have been used very long since the larger BIE was not known by Cohen, and has only recently been documented.

OAKSTAR

Great stuff @rmpsrpms!!

rmpsrpms

@OAKSTAR said:
Great stuff @rmpsrpms!!

Thanks! I've been told by quite a few folks that they've spent hours looking over some of the HiRes coins I've shot, perusing all the little details. It's a bit mesmerizing.

OAKSTAR

@rmpsrpms said:

@OAKSTAR said:
Great stuff @rmpsrpms!!

Thanks! I've been told by quite a few folks that they've spent hours looking over some of the HiRes coins I've shot, perusing all the little details. It's a bit mesmerizing.

It really is. It's just so cool!!

joeykoins

WAYNEAS

I started collecting these when I was a pre-teen.
The best finds for me was the 1957 D.
I still have them stored in a wooden wine box somewhere.
This will will be a great winter project.
First find the box and two, go thru them.
Wayne