1969 S Double Die

[creilly]

Hello,
I have been so excited to become a member. I had to go out of town for a wedding so its kind of anti-climatic for me now. Any back to COINS!!
I recieved a collection when my grandfater died and promptly started to carefully sell it off and in the process, I have fallen in love with pennies and I am now ardently collecting, still selling some stuff but I defenately have it in my blood.
So the other day I was watching the coin vault just to see what was what... and I did something I have never done. I purchased 20 random proof sets.
They arrived in the mail and I was checking them out and saw nothing special. Until, I got to the 1969 set. First what caught my attention was the fact the penny was rotated in the OGP. So I took a second look. Doubling on the "In God We Trust", ear lobe, nape of neck and "Liberty" and date. But not the Mint mark or the reverse. Now I see some roundedness of the doubleing and have been flip flopping on wheather it is a double die or double strike, machine doubleing. I took it to a coin dealer here in town and he told me to send to PCGS and have it graded and so that is where the coin is now. So tell me what yall think... now Im not a professional photo taker and I am still learning a lot and these are the 2 best I could get for the moment as I now longer have the coin in my posession. Until I get it back from PCGS. \
So tell me what you think............

[eagames]

Hi Creilly,

Firstly you are on the right track reading and using this forum, I can't tell how much it has helped me learn. I hope it also helps you. Welcome!

There's a very major real 69-S ddo worth big bucks you can look it up in any ddo publication but it is not on proofs. There might be some other very minor ones and even some that look like strike doubling that take a lot of skill to distinguish. One key thing if it has strike doubling or it has real double die doubling and notching. I can't see enough from your pic to be sure but I don't know of any 69-s proof ddo that exists. There is a known minor 69-s proof ddr (reverse). I have an almost identical one to your pic but I know it is just a strike double. So my guess is the coin is a strike double. PCGS probably will not list anything on the holder. I hope it turns out that I'm wrong. In any case keep learning and you might try getting inputs here on other stuff you find.
Some strike doubling may not effect the mintmark, it is good that it does not show on the coin so there's a chance of real DDO but it is no guarantee.

You might read the article below from PCGS, it is true that 69 is full of strike doubles but not as many double dies. They used it in their FAQ:

http://www.pcgs.com/articles/article_view.chtml?universeid=313&artid=3532

[eagames]

Here's my similar example of a strike doubled 69-s proof.

From the WE in your pic does this look similar?

There's no doubling on the S. Some letters look notched but it doesn't show in the pics but I can tell it's not DDO notching.

The clue to knowing it's a strike double (AKA machine double) is that if you look at a letter like the T the strike doubling is mostly south/below the first image so the second hit took metal from the top bar of the T and created the step... that made the top bar thinner than it would have been if not strike doubled... but on the vertical bar it only clips the base of the T so the vertical bar is left with normal thickness. On the real DDOs the second image is not smeared from the first so the thickness would be normal on the initial image. Strike doubling is unique so it can go any direction from one coin to another and it can show in some areas on a given coin but not on other areas.

[creilly]

its close.. Ill give you that!! I understand what you are saying on the T .... Ill see if I can post more pictures. I have to see what I uploaded. they were not very good... Still its worth the $25 bucks to see if it is or not.. Id hate to be wrong and have it never checked then have it checked and know its just a penny I wasted 25 bucks on!! Haa haa
I am still learning and have lots more to learn.

[eagames]

Thats a good way to think of it.

One point on grading is graders often won't list any variety on the holder unless you pay extra for attribution, I think PCGS asks $15 extra and will only list certain varieties.

On your proof sets there might be other ones to look for and can miss if you don't know where to look. There are nice 68-s proof DDOs and several 70-s and 71-s varieties. Many more from the 1960s. Plus the other denominations too.

If you like cent varieties the books like Chucks book "Looking Through Lincoln Cents" and "The Cherry Pickers Guide" Vol 1 are worth having. If you use the search function on this site there's a ton of varieties and it's free. After you get to the coin description click the EDS/MDS/LDS and you can see the detailed pics.

http://www.coppercoins.com/advsearch.php

[creilly]

I did request a variety search and confirm. I advised what I thought it was etc.... and I sent in some other coins I wanted graded too. I dont have any other photos to post to it.
I like the pennies because it seems almost every ones is just a little different. And the investment is cheap, especially if you search change!!
Its fun and affordable!

[Bob P]

Catherine,
Welcome to the forum. Yo will find that using this forum, and the information contained in coppercoins.com could save you tons of money in the long run. An example would be when you should send your coins in for grading. You need to understand that PCGS and other third party graders will not tell you whether or not your coin is a doubled die, nor if it suffers from common mechanical/strike doubling. They will grade the coin based on it condition, and sometimes spending 30 bucks to grade a common coin is not really worth it.
As Ed mentioned, there are some good books out there to help you out. We want you to enjoy your hobby, not be burdened on taken advantage of by it. If you are interested in buying one of Chuck's books "Looking Through Lincoln Cents", please let me know as I have a few of the first edition copies left. Please feel free to ask questions often. Everyone here just loves to help out fellow collectors.

[creilly]

so If I pay for them to confirm the error they wont?

[Bob P]

It all depends on which service you go to, and what their policy is. The point I am trying to make is that to spend $30 or more to have PCGS tell you it's strike doubling on a very common date with tons of the same type error seems to me as a waste of money. Of course, the decision is all yours, and I would never stand in the way of that, or tell you it is wrong. This is merely my opinion.

[creilly]

Well I am new to all of this and my husband and I have the opinion that.. its better to spend 30 bucks and find out I wasted it on just a pennyt then not to spend it and never really know.

I understand about the grading vs.value of the coin. I certainly wont send in every penny much less every other!!

[coppercoins]

Creilly - I understand you wanting to have your 69S cent verified for what it is, but the coin dealer steered you wrong. PCGS only certifies and identifies a few dozen different doubled dies, and even if this were a doubled die, it wouldn't be one of the ones that PCGS recognizes. The dealer you went to is obviously underinformed in this area.

It is good you found this forum so you will not be steered wrong again in this area. There are a number of true doubled dies that will not go into a PCGS holder as such, and there are a ton of coins like yours out there that have some doubling to some degree but have no premium value because they are common machine doubling. We collectors here at this forum can tell the difference and can steer you in the right direction with what to do with your coins.

Welcome aboard!

[rollmeupabe]

creilly, welcome to the best coin site on the web. I started off like you by sending a few coins to ANACS which is another grading service. They specialize in varieties. I had a Kennedy Half dollar that I knew was a real DDO. For about $35 they confirmed I was right !!! It was actually a triple die. Then I found out there are a ton of them in circulation so it might be worth $25-$35 on Ebay. After spending more and more time on this sight I have learned alot about what to look for. Great people here, even though sometimes it feels like someone is letting the air out of your balloon when they give us the straight scoop. As Bob said, you can save a ton of money by posting a picture and getting some great free advice. On the off chance they are wrong about your coin, I have about a dozen of those I will send off to PCGS. They caught my attention also.

[eagames]

Dealers are eager to send coins for grading but I've never talked to one that understood how it works for varieties.

PCGS will attribute varieties listed in the Cherry Pickers Guide with the FS numbers assigned in that book. I've seen a few non CPG ones with coneca die numbers on the holders but I have no idea how they got them to do it. PCGS graded coins often get the best sale price but the thing I don't like is they limit what they attribute and make you pay to join yearly just to get stuff graded or you must use the dealers that paid. The last time I sent one it cost $15 for grading plus $15 for the attribution plus return postage/ins fee.

A good dealer should tell you up front PCGS will not attribute your 69-S proof because it's not listed in the Cherry Pickers guide or their registry set or Coneca. Even if it's a minor DDO they will keep your money and give no attribution.

ANACS is good for varieties, you can send without a yearly fee or using a dealer. Print the form from their site and follow the instructions. They'll attribute Cherry Pickers guide coins with FS numbers or Coneca listed varieties with the die number or they will use Chucks numbers as you find in this web site. You can pay them $12 for grading plus $10 for attribution plus postage. If you know the variety you can pay the $12 for grading plus $5 for variety verification but If you're wrong they don't put the attribution so only do that if you're sure. You also pay return postage and ins.

NGC is also good and will attribute Cherry Pickers coins and I'm not sure what else or their exact fee.

There's other graders but those are not looked at as highly when selling coins.

TV sales are notoriouse for being bad deals. They offer high grade modern stuff or proofs or bullion coins like silver or gold eagles. They gloat about being MS69 or MS70 and get big money. If you go to sell em the dealers laugh and say these are never circulated and all of them are high grade and will only pay bullion price! I choke watching those guys touching a common low grade silver dollar covered with bag marks and saying they only have a few left and it's a bargain at 3 times the going value.

It's ok to spend a few bucks learning but if you're careful you'll have more good stuff in the end.

[creilly]

Thanks for all the info.. I was talking with my husband and he said he DID send the coin to ANACS not PCGS..
I did not know that!! Haa haa

I have been reading everything I can on this site. Im so glad I found it. I love pennies!!!

I really appreciate the info!!!I wanted to add too I spent $106.11 with shipping for 20 proof sets, 20 different years. So it was about $5.00 per proof set so I think I got my monies worth.

[eagames]

Thats not such a bad price.

Probably the reason is they buy a lot of sets then they search them for errors, cameos, high grades. Then they put together sets of one proof set of every year for a span of years and sell those. Often most things are cheap but some scarce one is the key to the set like 1986 unc sets are way more than others around that year.

Whatever is left they will sell cheaper.

It's like with wheat cents, you might get lucky and buy an unsearched hoard from an old timer and find good stuff or you can buy a bag from someone that already took the best stuff. Common stuff is not bad when you first get into collecting but as you have more stuff then you cringe at the thought of having a bunch more of the most common ones. I'll search anything just in case