1936 wheat penny
LParker22
Posts: 7 ✭
I have a 1936 no mint mark penny but the 6 looks like a G. I can’t find this error anywhere unless it’s a Double Die Error. Anyone ever seen this before?
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look at the date and letters - this a a doubleD die
I know that but have you ever seen a 6 that looks like a G in a wheat penny?
what you have is not an error. something moved metal there, like maybe a hit from something.
it is damaged, but not so much that it's still worth a bit more than a penny. that'd be good to start a coin collection album
What would’ve hit it? That doesn’t make much since to the coin is pretty much intact. What would’ve hit it to make it look like a G?
for instance it could be other cents in a bag of $50
for the surrounding metal to look like the rest, it was deformed a ways back
It is common for the last digit of the date on a Lincoln cent to get sliced by a counting machine.
That is what happened here.
Okay well I wasn’t sure I have several wheat Pennie’s including more 1936 and none of them have this.
@LParker22 you're on the right track! Interesting things are found when you look closely at coins, and the differences that some special ones exhibit. But I'm in agreement with the other folks here, this particular coin took a little hit and the 6 was dinged inward a bit.
Keep looking closely... ya never know what you'll find!
My (infrequently updated) hobby website Groovycoins.com
This is clearly Post Mint Damage. Meaning it did not leave the Mint like that. Somewhere along it’s 90 year history, it was damaged. Not an error.
It doesn't happen to every coin. It does happen to a lot of coins. It's just minor damage on the 6.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
The bad news is: It's just a damaged coin.
The good news is: I was able to collect a $5000 reward from Unsolved Mysteries using your fingerprints.
Depending upon your level of experience, the above statements about being "on the right track" and "Keep looking closely" could be really poor advice. Please let me explain. If you don't already understand the minting process (that is, how coins are made and the steps in their preparation) and if you don't already have a good feel for what legitimate, accepted errors or varieties look like then you are unlikely do recognize the one coin in 10,000 or so that might be special and you are far, far more likely to waste your time and efforts on the other 9,999 coins that a more experienced or knowledgable numismatist would immediately recognize as damaged.
Buy and read a Red Book (shown below) and you don't need to replace it but perhaps once every decade or two. It will help immensely.
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
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@TomB I absolutely agree with your recommendations to buy and read literature, educate oneself on the minting processes (all of them, from the screw press to the steam press to the modern equipment that turns out millions of MS70 coins), etc. But I can't see why any of us should stop looking closely. Yeah, they may waste some time. But it's their time to waste, doing something that they enjoy. Sometimes I waste my time playing Minesweeper on my phone! :-)
Now, if the subject at hand were skydiving or Isle of Man TT motorcycle racing - yeah, I'd agree, put in the hours of reading and work up to it. But this is lookin' at coins we're talking about here.
I'm not arguing and I mostly agree with your position... but I'm sticking with my recommendation. Keep looking!
My (infrequently updated) hobby website Groovycoins.com
The problem with your advice is that it is not just their time that is wasted, it's also the hours of time that volunteers on forums like this and NGC as well as the number of hours that brick and mortar shops waste having to break the bad news to all the folks that show up with damaged coins. And of course, the inevitable arguments that what they have must be an undiscovered error because it cannot be found on the internet. Or the equally argumentative response that everyone else is wrong because he/she found one just like it on Ebay and everyone is just trying to rip them off. While your advice is well intentioned Tom's advice is spot on.
I invite you to spend a few days on the NGC newbie forum to get a real sense of just how many people are convinced that they have rare errors from the well-intentioned advice of "look for anything different". The number of posts like this one is tenfold over on that forum vs here. Consider this from the op's post;
"I can’t find this error anywhere unless it’s a Double Die Error"
Like so many he didn't even consider it could be damage but rather that it had to be an error. I'm not calling the op out or picking on him, we all start at zero. Just pointing out that if you don't know what you're looking at or for looking is generally pointless. Ever since covid the web has been inundated with the mass misinformation of how easy it is to find rare errors in pocket change. In the twenty years I've been on this and the NGC forum I can count on less than one hand the number of real true errors or varieties that have been found/discovered/posted in those years by people searching pocket change. I would need thousands of hands and feet to count the number of roadkill damaged coins posted.
My Collection of Old Holders
Never a slave to one plastic brand will I ever be.
I don't think I fully explained my point. It's a waste of time to expend the time and resources when you don't understand or know what you are looking at or for. Given the first post in this thread by the OP, and follow-up replies, it is clear they don't understand the basics. As such, they will not learn efficiently until they are fluent in the basics. That is the definition of wasting one's time.
If they want to look at every piece of change then go ahead, but they shouldn't do so until they have at least a baseline education in the subject, which they don't appear to have at this time.
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
My old advice is that people looking for errors should not look more closely at their coins, they should instead look at more coins.
Except you will find 10,000 anomalies of which 1 will be an actual error or low value. Are you going to answer 9,999 threads for him?
If you are hunting snipe, it helps to know what snipe look like.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
+1
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.