Phantom D on Washington Commerative

WACoinGuy

I have a 1982-D Washington commerative that has what looks to be a phantom D on the reverse over the house. A strong mintmark appears on the obverse so I don't think this is where the mintmark is supposed to appear. Is this a known/common thing on this issue?

Here's a picture:

kamehameha00

Most likely crud on the holder or coin.

WACoinGuy

It's definitely not anything on the holder -- I moved the coin around a little in the holder and the phantom mintmark moved along with it. It would be strange if some crud on the coin were shaped exactly like a mintmark though, wouldn't it?

jhuberdude

It is a smoke ring coming from the chimney

pontiacinf

jhuber is correct, only its a chinese symbol

jhuberdude

I was looking at my half like that and it is not there. I do however have this Madison half with a strange foggy O on it.
Not sure what it is, but wish it wasn't there.

edsondl

Is the "D" imprinted into or out of the coin? Can you tell with a loop?

I wonder if it wasn't some kind of crud or metal that had filled the mintmark on the die and fell onto the reverse die (guess it depends which die was on top) and was incorporated into the next (your) coin?

Pretty neat. How does the size of the "D" compare to the mintmark on the obverse?

WACoinGuy

Kind of hard to tell if the D is imprinted into or out of the coin. I took some more detailed pictures with my Digital Blue microscope to get a better idea. Here's a close-up of the phantom D on the reverse:



and for comparsion, here's what the D on the obverse looks like:



as you can see, they are roughly the same size though of course the actual mintmark is much more well-defined:

darktone

That's neat! If I had to make a guess I would say it's from a filled die that dropped the letter. mike

MPeter

It may appear to be something, but then again........