1991-D, Lincoln cent error coin

[wavysteps2003]

When I first looked at this coin I thought "post strike damage", more than likely outside the mint, but that was until I took a better look at it.





As you can see, there are three raised or humped areas, one above, one below LIBERTY and one centered around the BER of Liberty.

The reverse has correponding dents around the left base of the Memorial building. Normally when you see something like this, you automatically think "outside the mint damage"

HOWEVER, let's take a look at the next pictures.








Notice on the first picture that the E of LIBERTY has an extra vertical bar and that both the E and R of LIBERTY have "trails" from the lower termini as does the E of WE in the second picture. The third pictureshows "trails", although I am not to sure that these continuations are exactly that, from under the bow tie and another that appears to be originating from Lincoln's adam's apple. As far as I know, this type of anomaly only happens during the die making process or possible during the striking process.

The next set of pictures, taken of the reverse, are even more interesting.







As you can see, there appears to be depressions around the left base of the Memorial building. Also note that the left edge of the stylobate appears to be doubled. Now look at the O of ONE and notice that it shows signs of doubling, not the type associated with machine doubling, however, the actual doubled die type. The last picture of UNITED shows that there are a few extra "bars" thrown in around UNI and also a huge notch on the top left of the letter E.

There is no distortion to the struck planchet, it lays flat, is perfectly round and weighs 2.5 g

Okays people, any ideas out there?

WAVYSTEPS2003 aka BJ Neff

[coop]

Looks like the cornice and roof upper areas are thicker?

[Bob P]

I think it is a real bad case of die deterioration BJ.

[wavysteps2003]

Bob you may be right, however, that would not account for the depressions on the reverse and the humps on the obverse. There is a bit more to this die than meets the eye and my main interest in finding out what possible is going on with the 'trail" like extensions from LIBERTY and other places.

Anyway, it is off to one of the best error specialist around, Mike Diamond to see if he can make heads or tails of what is up. Will post his conclusions when he notifies me.

BJ

[eagames]

Hey I like the well detailed kotter pin Abe has below his tie. Must have lost a botton that day.

My guess is this cent has a mix of issues, worn dies, an after strike dent plus mystery tails.

The rev dents and obv raised areas must be after mint damage, maybe it got wacked between 2 pieces of something that allowed dents without damaging the design? I can't imagine how a rev die could have a raised bump and the obv die could be dented since if something got in there and damaged them both would be dented not raised. It also looks AU in places but has a lot of marks like it has been through a bit of something.

I have seen zinc cents that have lifting on the plating and also get corrosion on the zinc but not the copper and it moves in under the raised plating and further lifts it and looks like doubling. I don't think it explains this one but explains some unique looking ones.