1988-D RPM

[murphy]

Found this today and this is the best pic I could get of it. It had very definite raised areas to the south east of and one also inside the D. Those areas are much brighter than the surrounding areas due to my rubbing with an alcohol cutip in an attempt to clean off the dirt and corrosion. Anybody ever seen this one before?

[img]see below[/img]

[Bob P]

Murph,
Looks pretty much like a plating error that occured often in the 80's and early 90's. I see what you are seeing, but the size is wrong also.
I would recommend also that you not use rubbing alcohol to clean your coins with. Get yourself a bottle of "Goo-Gone', and use it with your q-tip. Change the swab often...and don't rub it on the surface as any inpurities removed from the coin and stuck in the Q-tip will scratch your coin.

[murphy]

Thanks, I'll take your cleaning advice.
As for the suspect RPM, I dunno what it is. The main part is an arc that is just as high as the D mint mark and kinda sharp on top. It is very close in shape to the south east section of the D, very close! And the thing inside the mint mark looks more like a punch mark. Here's another picture:

[img]see below[/img]

[coppercoins]

Murphy - Bob is correct, what you have is a common problem found on many of the earlier zinc cents with mintmarks. It is a split in the plating of copper on the coin exposing the sensitive zinc underneath. The reason this happens around the mintmark more than on other areas of the coin is because the mintmarks were added by hand to the dies back then. They didn't always go in completely straight and the bevel of the edge was often not at an optimum angle. The coin would catch on the die when struck in this area tearing the micro-thin layer of copper covering the zinc. Once water molecules get beneath the copper shell and start turning the zinc into zinc oxide (white powder), the damage is irreversible from there and often gets much worse. It can cause all sorts of effects, including that which you see on your coin. Sorry, it is not an RPM.

[murphy]

Ok, I used my loupe to get this image. Can't get much better look than this. I'm learning, thanks to all the good advice and information everyone has been contributing. Thank you all.
[img]see below[/img]

[coop]

Murphy: I had one similar to that once. It had a hole under the mintmark. I was saving it and noticed over the years the hole kept getting larger. Then one day I must have mislaid it and it was gone. Not that it disappeared, it must have been accidently got spent or tossed into a roll or something. If it is still in collection somewhere I'll find it again and be able to check its progress. They just dissentigrate where the zinc is expossed. Not a pretty site when that happens.

[murphy]

You can see that this one has a hole. And it was badly corroded when I first spotted it. I'll put it in the "bucket" with my zinc colored cent and my smaller than normal elephant man Lincoln and my 2 Jail House Lincolns and my machine doubles. How much longer will I have to search before I find a 1999 Wide AM or a good double die or RPM? Well, at least I'm taking better pics.

Rather than post a reply to this, I'm going to edit this and add a better pic. A am also getting rid of the earlier inferior pics so I can have room for other pics in the future.

[coop]

Murph: Practice makes..... well better anyway. You will be ready with a good image to show your latest find. I found a lot of crap before I dound my first find. You'll remember the moment the rest of your life.

[coop]

I found another interesting RPM for this year last night. It looks similar to 002 & 010 for this year but the location/seperation is different than both of these and the RPM books' image doesn't really show location, but # 2 seperation looks like this one. Always to find new dies that are still out there.
I labeled it for now 1988D-1MM-coop-13.


Also found another new find going through circulated Cents. Watch for it