Un-plated planchet off center strike Lincoln cent verification
EngelhardMFR
Posts: 11 ✭
This coin was part of a large lot of errors that was taken in. I’m sure the off center strike is genuine, but the missing copper plate is questionable. The small copper pieces in the letters and rim look suspicious. The 1994 genuine partial plating does have a few copper spots so I’m not sure. Any thoughts on this one? 
1994 mentioned above
0
Comments
one thing to consider when plating issues are considered is the color of the zinc
that 96 doesn't seem the right color for a zinc only zincoln
Really strange. If you look at the “stretch marks” like under CENT and off the tip of the nose it looks like the planchet was plated, but with what?
Going to think about this one some more.
I don’t have a problem with that off-center cent– I’ve seen “pulled plating” like that
Before on normal off-center cents.
I also believe the 1994 partially plated cent is a genuine error -
Do you have reverse photos you can show?
it is unplated?
Reverse of 1994
There's "pull-away" toning in the right place on this. If the plating had been removed, I don't think you'd see that effect. I vote legit.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
The 1996 off center color I assume is the zinc reacting with the environment. Did it leave the mint that way or was it stripped after is the question.
I appreciate the help.
The 1994 is a nice example of a partially plated cent.
Can’t answer the question about the color of the 1996 -
I just thought it was different lighting. If the color is different,
it might have been cleaned or dipped at one time. Can’t tell for sure.
Pull-away toning (the non-discolored streaks emanating radially from the outermost edges of the design) happens because of the flow of the metal at the surface of the coin when it's struck. It's a weird phenomenon, for sure, especially when you see it on otherwise colorfully toned coins, such as monster toned Morgan dollars. The zinc underneath the copper coating is not at the surface, so it wouldn't react the same way. Moreover, if the copper had been stripped, there'd be some amount of damage to the underlying zinc and it wouldn't tone like this. For this reason, I think the off-center zinc cent is showing that the zinc is the original surface as struck and has had 30 years' worth of exposure to an environment that has tarnished it a bit.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
The "stretching" effect you get on zinc plated cents is exactly the same as elongated cents. Which is why elongated collectors try and use pre-1982 cents.
Slightly different from what I was talking about. This is physically tearing the plating, whereas there was no plating on the O/C coin. Torn plating on Zincoln errors with dramatically torn plating is limited to multiple strikes, die caps, "train wrecks," and stuff where the coin is significantly stretched.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
I think the OP’s coin IS plated. It even looks copper colored (but dull) on my screen.
Fred, any chance that this planchet got hung up in some of the annealing, rinsing or drying equipment for a while and acquired some sort of non-standard coating on its surface? I realize that this is a long shot. It would have been more likely back in the days when an actual Mint was making planchets of different metals and could have washed a one cent planchet in with a batch of five cent planchets, or whatever.
The little copper spots that remain look similar to the 1994 cent.
Tom, that’s a possibility but are we sure that it’s not just the lighting that’s making the surfaces look a slightly different color?
I’m not sure of anything on this piece. I would love to see the results of an x-ray test of the surface, but there is no way it would be worth the cost.
I’ll see if I can get some better photos. I do have access to XRF as well.
interesting. i see those "spots" now. there is quite a bit of copper color there. then around the date, that pull away looks off color zinc in places. but it also has dark "sparkles" with some color scattered around."partially plated?"