2005 double or other

[mojaveblue]

I might have it down, picture posting that is.

This coin has similar features as the 2006 I just posted, the "R" in "TRUST" definately has a look to it.
The "S" also has a line. But as usual, I can't see any splits in serifs.
The defects on these coins are extremely minor of course, but it is good to know if it is doubling or just looking too hard at the details.

Thanks

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[coppercoins]

That coin exhibits signs of die wear. Not every doubled line you see on a coin is going to turn out to be a doubled die.

Just remember the splits in the serifs you would see also accompany thicker than normal letters. The splits in the serifs are because there are two overlapping sets of letters there that don't quite match up.

[mojaveblue]

Thanks again,

you are really helping me to refine my searching, and save me time.

Phil

[coppercoins]

One thing you are doing, I believe, is looking too hard. Don't worry so much about trying to discover the next new barely visible die...study some of the images of some of the better, more obvious dies, and try to find something like those.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make early on is paying too much attention to a lot of really minor, minor details trying to make things into something they are not rather than getting the big picture and spending a little time on a lot more coins to find a whopper. Remember that the whoppers are rare, and finding them is likely to be fewer than one per $50 face in coins. Actually closer to 1 for 10,000 or more. You'll hap upon a minor one here and there too, I'm sure....but don't expect a doubled die per roll - it just don't happen!

My basic rule of thumb...I don't spend any more than a couple of seconds per side of a coin to see if it's anything collectible. I don't twist, turn, and overmagnify a coin trying to turn it into something it's not. If I don't see it right away, it's just not there. If I miss something really minor, I don't sweat it.

Believe me. This attitude will have you finding something of decent merit MUCH faster than trying to flyspeck every coin in every roll.

[coppercoins]

Continued...

Save the flyspeck stuff for when you get a lot more time and experience knowing the difference under your belt - five years of searching or more. Go through a couple hundred thousand coins, THEN start really picking them apart, because THEN you will know for sure what the design is supposed to look like, and anything odd with stick out.

But what's more important, after a couple hundred thousand coins you will have picked a dozen or more decent doubled dies, and you will have seen thousands and thousands of examples of die cracks, die wear, and machine doubling, and you will no longer have any question in your mind as to why us experienced folk call those the fool's gold of error/variety collecting. They are common and worthless.

Summary -


Spend the time you are learning the trade looking for better, more major stuff. There are dozens of known decent doubled dies in memorial cents. Let those be your guide to finding the goodies, and let the really minor questionable stuff slide through. Save the minor stuff for when you know a lot more about what you're doing.

[coppercoins]

Just to add one thing:

Just last week a very nice 1987D doubled die obverse cent was discovered.

Two years ago a very major 1982 doubled die reverse cent was discovered.

It does happen, and the nice ones aren't all completely spoken for.

Wasting time as a newby trying to find the most minor of minor will have you going through 50 coins in the time it should take you to scan through 500 coins. Work on volume with some speed at first, find better stuff, and you'll learn how to rule out the minor and non-collectible stuff as you go along.

[mojaveblue]

Yep,
all advice I intend to follow. I have the Cherry Picker's guides for all the denominations, and I have been thinking how some of the prominent RPMs and OMMs have to be in very good shape to just be worth a few bucks. I say to myself, I really will need to improve my speed to enable me to crank up the volume of inspections.
So, that's true, the more I see, the more Ill recognize for normal or error.
I read one of the guys saying he had a couple bank boxes to still go thru, I have been getting behind on my coins too, but when Im at the bank on payday it's hard to resist asking for more.
Thanks, Phil

[coppercoins]

Set aside enough to squirrel away long-term. Don't use grocery money and make this a "job" getting through enough to buy bread. If it's $5 a week, so be it. Buy them, squirrel them, and look at them when you will receive enjoyment out of doing it. If you have $60 saved at the time, then knock yourself out going through 6,000 coins. After a while, you will be able to use the "back to bank" pile to pay for another pile, and nothing will come out of your "income".

The important **SLAP SLAP - READ THIS** part about using the Cherrypickers' Guide is this...only about 2% of everything known is listed in that guide. MANY decent die varieties are skipped to keep the book "the best of the best". It's not nearly all-inclusive of die varieties that do have significant value, nor are some major recent discoveries listed.

With this to wit, DO NOT only look through the dates listed in the guide. Look at EVERYTHING, but do it quickly enough to scoop out the ones that have significant oddities, but don't over-inspect the coins. That was my point.

I would NEVER tell anyone to ONLY go through X-list of dates because that's all that contains anything good. ANY date can contain something good.

[coppercoins]

You've obviously got some good imaging equipment. You've obviously got an interest. You've got the tools, you've got the interest. I would now urge you to look at the books, familiarize yourself with the characteristics of what we call 'of value' and dig in.

While looking at your sorted coins, you will quickly grasp a few things:

1. Different dates look far different from one another under some magnification. Anyone who says they cannot see the difference between a 1968 and 1998 cent without looking at the date doesn't belong in this hobby. With that said, understand that you've defeated one monster by sorting. Now you have a lot of coins of the SAME design to look at. This is a BIG clue to finding doubled dies. COMPARE what you find to others of the same date. If the letters are significantly different, notched, separated, or just "odd", save the coin for later in a tube marked with the date. At some later date, go back through that tube, and weed out the ones you will THEN undestand to be non-value added machine doubling or die deterioration, etc.

[coppercoins]

2. Larger samples = less work for more chances. my point here is that 500 coins may only include 1 example of a 1983 cent. 5,000 coins would theoretically include 10 examples of the same date. With one coin to look at, you don't have comparison coins to subject to a test to see if your 1983 cent is 'different'. With ten examples, there's a reasonable chance that if there's something different, you'll see it. With 50,000 coins sorted you'd have 100 coins to check against in this hypothetical situation...even more to check against! The larger sample you have, the less work you have to go through with your eyes when looking at multiples of something that are supposed to be identical.

The sorting is still the same work, just use larger containers. I use gallon size baggies, and they do fill up before I start searching. That work is done, as it would have been done with the same speed per coin regardless of how many I sorted. My brain can only figure out which of ten containers a coin belongs in, so each coin takes an identical amount of time to sort.

The benefit comes from the speedier search time. I can look at 100 coins in just a little more time than I can look at ten coins.

[coppercoins]

3. It never hurts to keep something that "might be" just to look at it again later. Keep "maybe" tubes of each date and pop them in there. Once you get more tuned in to what you're doing, and fill your tubes, you have solid date rolls to go back through (using this website) to check your "maybe coins" against each other and against the photos in the site. It makes it a lot - LOT - easier than trying to identify each coin one-by-one, speeds up the 'process' significantly, and again, increases your chances of identifying the real gems (see #2).

[mojaveblue]

Chuck,

Is it ok to copy some of the info here on the forum for reference to later, cause I was wondering how long posts reside?
I believe I see what you mean for checking coins, you do volumes more than what I do, but I do sort by dates and by the cherry pickers guide. I have found out that there are many m more varieties or special cents than listed there. And I have begun to be able to recognize some ordinary ones like 1984D cent and a 2001D cent before seeing the date and MM, and I say to myself, good for a start. Now I will try to check more in less time, like you say comparing them to each other.
I had glanced at Ken Potter's variety site and his sale list, and of course many more than what I had been looking for previously.
I appreciate the comments on equipment, I have been trying to get the most from it. And definately I have the interest.
Any feedback or thoughts you have are greatly appreciated,
Phil

[coppercoins]

Copy down and keep anything you want from this site for private use. No problems.

[daviscfad]

[Bob P]

I don't know if the one I added to the site yesterday (June 18th), is the one Chuck is referring to or not, but I did add 1987D-1DO-002 yesterday.