What happened to these Indian Cents

fishteeth

Picked up a bag of 1000 indians in trade for some of my duplicate bust halves a few months ago.
Just got around to going through them, while looking through the coins these two stood out to me.

I thought the 1903 could have perhaps occured at the mint, maby a strike through or? no damage on the front

the 1902 looks like post mint damage to me, just haven't figured out how it happened. The coin is slightly egg shaped, smaller diameter and thicker than the rest.
the edge shows no signs of damage. Any thoughts.

seanq

The 1902 looks like it could have been in a piece of jewelry or some other encasement. I saw a very similar looking Indian cent once that came out of a belt buckle.

The 1903 is pretty bizarre, I'm trying to picture how a die could fail in a way to strike a coin with that look and I can't come up with any logical explanation, so I'm thinking it must be post-strike damage of some kind. It looks like it was acid etched but I'm stumped how it could have happened to just selected areas. It almost looks like someone tried to melt or solder a washer onto the coin. Very interesting... thanks for showing them.


Sean Reynolds

droopyd

For the 1903, the die was probably filled with grease, causing everything to moosh out.

fishteeth

Any other ideas what may have happened to the 1903

fc

the 1903 appears to be struck through grease.. as in the die was full of it.
pretty dramatic if that is the case.

grip

Grease from a hamburger,eating on the job?

seemyauction

Not a clue, but sure neat.

Thanks for sharing


Alan

EagleEye

The 1903 is post-striking damage. Maybe it was made into a button and later the solder was removed from the back. The 1902 looks squished, maybe it was run over by a trolly. Perhaps it was taken out of an encasement, but those coins are usually better shape that this piece.

commoncents05

Dang, EagleEye beat me to it. Solder removed on #1, and #2 my guess is that it was once one of those "Lucky Pennies" encased.

-Paul