1956 D Wheat Penny. How can you tell normal wear from mint mistakes?
Xceler8r
Posts: 18 ✭
I am new to coin collecting. been going thru coins my father gave me. This is a 1956 D penny that seems to have mint error on it but, I am not sure. How can you tell from it has just had a hard life to a mint mistake? 
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Uncirculated Minst State
BST: KindaNewish (3/21/21), WQuarterFreddie (3/30/21), Meltdown (4/6/21), DBSTrader2 (5/5/21) AKA- unclemonkey on Blow Out
About Uncircuated with small problems
BST: KindaNewish (3/21/21), WQuarterFreddie (3/30/21), Meltdown (4/6/21), DBSTrader2 (5/5/21) AKA- unclemonkey on Blow Out
Your coin with typical heavy circulation, post mint damage, and safe to spend.
BST: KindaNewish (3/21/21), WQuarterFreddie (3/30/21), Meltdown (4/6/21), DBSTrader2 (5/5/21) AKA- unclemonkey on Blow Out
Use common sense.
It takes time reading and looking at coins. Most of us started by filling albums years ago.
Learn the process by which the mint makes coins. Then you’ll know when the flaw comes from the mint.
I had seen this 1956 D on ebay with similar damage. I am new to coin collecting. When I came across a similar coin on the internet, I thought I would ask about it on this site. I know it is ebay and people scam people all the time. I was not aware that this is a stupid question. I will not do it again.
Thank you Fraz for the only intelligent answer. I was getting worried there for a moment. The other guys seem to be just trolls.
No need to avoid asking the questions.
Your cent definitely looks weird, and one photo actually had me thinking there could be a lamination.
Most weird looking coins are not errors, but most errors do look weird. So the odds are against you but the possibility is there. 🤔
Thank you JBK! Are there anymore pictures I could get for you on this coin that would give you a better view? I have a microscope to take pictures with.
From what I am seeing with my untrained eye and point of view, it does look like a lamination error to me from the examples I have seen. Do you have recommendations on my next step to see if this is a lamination error coin?
Part of the problem is that the coin is so roached with environmental damage that it might be difficult to sort it all out. Plus, especially in that condition, any lamination would not really have much value.
Might be a good reference coin to put away and take a fresh look at a little way down the road after you have more perspective/experience.
Don't worry - that process never stops - I still do it.
There are great books on coin errors.
Here is another picture I just took. It does look like the G in GOD looks off to me. Notice where the lamination error line goes thru it, part of the G looks shifted down.
The cake analogy is pretty spot on BTW.
Sometimes the damage is so complete it looks normal to a newbie.
Imagine Little Johnny sneaking a taste of icing. That I'd the difference between AU58 and MS64
BST: KindaNewish (3/21/21), WQuarterFreddie (3/30/21), Meltdown (4/6/21), DBSTrader2 (5/5/21) AKA- unclemonkey on Blow Out
Someone with a good eye can look at look at coins with known lamination errors and learn what to look for on other coins to identify that kind of error. Anyone with a good eye can see that your coin does not have a lamination error.
Lamination errors are relatively easy to identify, so if you can't identify a lamination, there's not much point in looking for other types of errors. The comparison coin that you chose from eBay shows that you are not using common sense either. Instead of looking for errors, you might consider filling a Whitman folder instead. Hope that helps.
Its been cut by something. Note the G in GOD is sliced through. That indicates it is not a mint error. Even if it were it would not be something to get excited about as that coin has obviously circulated for years. Looking for little "errors" is fun but a waste of your time.
Get a Red Book of US coins and in the back there is a chart that shows errors and values and there are PICTURES of the errors.
There are really very, very few, from the 40's and 50's that are even worth looking for. The Red Book also lists those in the regular section like the 1955 double die cent.
So, knowledge is key to value and searching.
Get the Red Book of US coins and read it as you need to get that knowledge. A used Red Book will cover all the dates of wheat cents that are "errors' and "valuable". The Red Book lists all US coins that you will ever encounter from the 1700's to date.
Here is one you could just grab for starters:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/285736839958?
bob
I think some posters here have truly forgotten how hard some of this information is to discern for a new collector. None of them knows what lamination is or how to spot it. Obviously the overwhelming majority of “error” finds or sales on eBay are just damage but we can still educate people who seriously want to learn the difference.
It is very hard to tell a strike-through from a scratch - probably not for people who have been doing this for 30-50 years, but for someone just starting out. It’s hard to tell lamination from damage sometimes too.
To the original poster, in order to understand the differences you have to learn what kinds of errors can happen at the mint and what these look like. That requires knowing about the method of manufacturing and seeing a lot of genuine mint errors. As @AUandAG mentioned above, the Red Book is a great place to start.
This is why it's hard to take these threads as genuine. Dozens of people come here each month hoping to strike it rich with an obviously damaged coin. In order to believe any of that, you have to abandon all common sense.
If you're a genuine guy interested in coins, buy a whitman folder and start a date/mm collection from circulation. Stop chasing the fantasy that you can sell a damaged penny for thousands of dollars.
That is great advice thank you! I am just going thru all of the coins my father gave me and I am trying to understand what I have. I have only come across two coins I had questions about so far. The 1826 capped bust I have ended up being a counterfeit Chinese coin.
I am sure I will have what seems to you to be more dumb questions. But I will take the advice and get the red book and a whitman folder. And will come back when I educate myself a little more on coins. Thank you.
I have the red book and a whitman folder for my wheat pennies on the way!
Sounds like a good plan. I hope you gain an interest in coin collecting. Remember, it's a hobby though. People rarely make money, especially in the short term, but you can do well if you build a nice collection over time. It takes a lot of knowledge though to know what to buy and what to avoid.
Nah, they’re damn good trolls. Stick around and watch some other people step in doo-doo, you’ll see.
On line videos touting big profits from mint "errors" have caused many non-collectors to think they have a real find when all they have is a damaged coin. You have an obviously damaged coin.
The steps in the process are to first learn the minting process for the relevant period, only certain things can actually happen. Then if you find what you think is an error, find a precise match at varietyvista.com, error-ref.com or many other online sources of information.
And then if you find a precise match you may have found something of value. Most likely it is either PMD (post mint damage) or a non-valuable "error."
The worst thing to do is find something and then just post it without doing any research for others to give you an answer so that you never learn to spot things for yourself.
Or you could do like me and just cruise the reliable auctions (like GC, Heritage, Stacks) and bid on what you are looking for, what I call the really lazy man approach. I bagged a 55DDO 63BN this week.
I should add that you should never clean or mess with a coin as that can destroy any value it had. Just a no no in coin collecting.
bob
That coin is damaged. Yours is corroded.
The key is to understand what happens in the minting process. That limits the number of things that can be actual mint errors.
99.999% of all unusual things in circulating coins are simply circulation damage.
That eBay coin is damaged, and this is obvious to anyone who actually knows anything about varieties or mint errors. The person selling it on eBay for $2499 is therefore a scammer.
Some signs pointing to this coin being damage and not an error are:
- The metal inside the "damaged" area is much brighter and shinier than the surrounding undamaged area. This indicates it is likely a "fresher" surface than the surrounding area, and the only way two parts of a coin can be of different ages is if soeone has scratched up or otherwise damaged the coin, long after it was put into circulation.
- See how the "line" of damage goes straight through everything - the head, the background fields, the lettering, and the rim? An actual error or variety (like a filled die, or a die crack, or a die chip, or a die clash) won't do that. Someone running a sharp object like a knife or screwdriver across the coin's surface, however, would do such damage.
- The "line" is incuse - cut in to the coin's surface. For this to be a mint error caused by damage to the die, this would mean that something would have had to have been raised. It's easy to damage a die by cutting in to it or pieces breaking off of it - but this would create raised bumps on the coin, not pits and troughs.
Some signs that this eBayer is a scammer include:
- the starting price of $2499. eBay has a rule where you can't sell a coin for more than $2500 without it being certified by a grading company. Anyone listing a "coin" is automatically flagged by eBay's bots if it's over $2500. So $2499 is the maximum they're allowed to put for this coin; they're trying to maximize their gains while still flying under eBay's radar.
- Most actual mint errors usually don't sell for anywhere near that much money. There are some famous and spectacular errors and varieties, such as the 1955 doubled die, which might reach this kind of price range, but for the most part, no.
Now, back to your coin. How can we tell what's going on here?
First off, we note at first glance that the coin is quite badly corroded. Bronze Lincolns don't normally come greenish-grey in colour. I tend to ascribe to the "Occam's Razor" theory of coin damage: if I see a coin with all different kinds of damage on it, it's far more probable that a single event caused all of the damage, rather than two different improbable damage-causing events happening to the same coin. So, it's most likely that whatever caused the stains and corrosion, also caused the cracks and missing details on the coin's surface.
So, what might have caused this damage? Well, we really don't know for sure - we weren't there to watch it get damaged. The corrosion implies either burial in the ground or some kind of corrosive chemical. The cracks imply either physical stress, or extreme heat.
Perhaps the coin was in a fire, and the ashes (with the coin in it) then got wet? That's not an improbable occurrence, and is a single event that would explain both the damage and the corrosion.
Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations"
Apparently I have been awarded one DPOTD.
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