2003 proof lincoln question

coincan101

i took the above coin to work where an electronic microscope is avvailable in the lab and while checking out the coin i noticed in the date that the 3 was very weekly struck. the 2 and both the 0's were bright under the scope but the 3 was very week and the tail of the 3 barley visible. is this common for the coin has anyone else noticed this

Bochiman

Very common.
People were originally selling these on ebay as "mint error", "missing 3", "invisible 3" etc....
For awhile, these were more common than a full 3.

Not sure where it ended up finally (1/2 and 1/2 or what).
I have a handful of them....I need to check and hope I have a strong 3 as well.

kieferscoins

If it takes an electronic microscope to find an error thats going too far.

Cameron Kiefer

coincan101

yes i agree. an electronic microscope is quite powerful. they use it to look at the fibers in styrene so its a pretty good one. as you can see this is only my 6th post and am quite new to this but finding odd things on coins is like openning a christmas present for me. i dont think of this as an error coin i just saw it and asked a question. the microscope just brought this date question up. which brings up another thought. i think that the first person to find an error on a coin that error should be named after that person. they do it for stars and i am told there are more stars in the sky than anything so shouldnt we name errors after the person who discovers them? interesting thought but on the other side dont they name diseases that way too? hmmm.

kieferscoins

Error coins are not named after the discoverer but have a complex numbering system to denote the date, denomination, year, and type of error.

Welcome to the boards!

Cameron Kiefer

Wolf359

but finding odd things on coins is like openning a christmas present for me

OH YEAH BABY, same here! I do this with Morgan dollars. A couple thousand known varities and 3 new ones I found in the last 4 months. Nothing like the thrill of discovery (or finding an ultra-rare *wink, wink*).

DorkGirl

---Some errors have nic names, I guess that's as close as it gets.