Expert: PAPAJACK - 4/23/2007

Question
The pair of 1944D pennies have the D stamped in two different locations. One has the D under the 9 and the other is in the regular spot under the 4. Is this a miss print? and if so what is this worth? Or is this the norm.?

Answer
Hello Fred,         

This is common. The Philadelphia mint made all the master and working dies for the coins. They were sent to the branch mints as needed with a designated mint letter. However each of the branch mint marks were punched into the dies by hand in those days. Positioning was done by eye, some were high, some low some upside down. And even many were double stamped when the worker tried to repair the positioning. These are called Re-Punched Mint Marks (RMM).

The 1944-D has a variety that sells well and is in demand by some collectors. It is the D over S variety. There is a partial top of the letter S faintly seen just north of the letter D.

Quick Notes About “Strike-over Mint Marks”
Before Mint Marks were made as a part of the die, the Mint Mark was hand punched into each die at the Philadelphia Mint prior to shipment to the designated branch mint. Occasionally an error was made, the punched Mint Mark was filled in, and the new Mint Mark was punched over the old. The result on the finished product is the faint outline of the previous Mint Mark showing from behind the current one. One of the most famous occurs on the 1900 Morgan dollar where the “O” (New Orleans) Mint Mark appears over the “CC” (Carson City) Mint Mark. The short hand for this is 1900-O/CC. The most common of the Strikeover Mint Marks on the Lincoln pennies are: 1909-S/lazy S, 1944-D/S, 1943 Bold D/D, 1946-S/D, and 1956-D/D (the old Mint Mark actually falls slightly below the new one).

Here is a great listing of all the various placement of the 1944 mint marks. Numismatists use these for die pair identification etc..
http://conecaonline.org/content/lincolnrpms1944.html

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Thank You and Good Luck

PapaJack