Expert: Ronald Fern - 4/27/2010

Question
Hi, I have a 1970 penny where the south end (under lincolns head) is thinner than the rest of the penny, the 7 is smushed and fatter and also the 0 looks like a d, is this common, I am sure it is not a double die, but I am sure I have found something not common. Could you please help and if not direct me to someone, thank you

Answer
Hi Chris:

Thanks for the question.

It is difficult to answer your question without a photo or seeing the coin, but I'll try. If you want to ask a follow-up question by providing additional photos of the coin, or more of a description, I'll modify the answer, if required.

It sounds like you could have a coin that is both a mint error and a damaged coin. One of the keys would be to compare your 1970 cent with another in the same date range. If you have a scale, weigh the two coins. If you have a magnifying glass, around 7X to 10X would be best, look at the "70" in the date to try and determine if the difference in the numbers looks like damage. I don't believe you have a doubled die. One of the things I suspect is that it may have gone through a coin counter and was damaged by the wheels in the counter. This is fairly typical of our smaller denomination coinage and happens regardless of date. The thin area under Lincoln's head, may be the result of a tapered thin blank. This would have happened during the planchet manufacturing stage before the coin was struck.

The value would be dependent on the coins condition as well as the error/damage. The damage would add nothing to the value of the coin. A new 1970 cent would be worth no more than about twenty five cents. The tapered thin blank error would have a estimated retail value of $5 to $10 to an interested collector.

You may want to check ebay listings under US coins in the error category to see if your error coin is listed, and what these errors are going for. You may also want to check out these links on error coin values:
http://www.coinsite.com/html/USErrorPrices.asp
http://www.minterrornews.com/priceguide.html

I've provided two links for you to see what type of non-error coins exist.
See link: http://coinauctionshelp.com/page15.html
See link: http://conecaonline.org/content/OhNo.htm

If you live close to a coin shop, they should offer you an opinion as to what you have and it's value at no charge.

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Thank You and Good Luck in your collecting.