Expert: PAPAJACK - 10/12/2007

Question
I have a 1955S penny with what appears to be a mint flaw in the first 5 of the date.  The bottom part of the 5 is raised and nearly filled in, making distinguishing the date difficult.  It is not the well know double struck date.  Do you have any information about such a coin?
Thanks, Frank

Answer
Hello Frank,                                   

This is most likely caused by a broken die. The center of the digit five must have broken off.

Since this is a production problem and not a die error it will be worth less than an error that was in the die and produced all the coins it made with exactly the same condition.

Error collecting is a branch outside of normal coin collecting. There is no fixed pricing on these error coins published and each one would have to be seen to be evaluated.

For more information on errors look for the "The ERROR COIN ENCYCLOPEDIA" by Arnold Margolis

I also want to mention COMBINED ORGANIZATION of NUMISMATIC ERROR COLLECTORS ASSOCIATION; they are the ultimate experts in the error coin field.  
CONECA is a national numismatic organization devoted to the education of error and variety coin collectors. CONECA focuses on many error and variety specialties, including doubled dies, Re-punched mint marks, multiple errors, clips, double strikes, off-metals and off-centers just to name a few.

I hope this information is helpful.

Feel free to ask another question about US Coins.

Good Luck

PapaJack