THE ERROR THAT WASN'T

The Scene: Metropolitan Coin Club Meeting, Atlanta, GA
The Time: Saturday, March 2, 2019
The Subject: Incredible Multi-struck Lincoln Cent

Sitting at my mini-bourse table at a recent coin club meeting, a young man approached and said he had been referred to me by another club member. He said he had a coin that he thought “was something special”.

Danny explained that he had purchased the coin (in a plastic key ring) at the souvenir shop at the U.S. Mint headquarters in Washington, D.C. He noticed that it just “didn’t look right” and asked me what I thought.

When I looked at it, it was a lovely bright uncirculated example of the fourth and scarcest design of the 2009 Lincoln cent special series from the Denver mint, the Presidency design, with the reverse showing the unfinished Capitol building. Looking at it more closely, I saw that it had been multi struck in collar, with at least three of the strikes in step fashion, close together, and another struck with about a 10-degree rotation. WOW!!!

On the obverse, LIBERTY was strongly doubled to the south and the 2009 date was doubled to the north. On the reverse, the multi strike was much more apparent with repeat images all over the place. I could see staggered images throughout ONE CENT and the Capitol building which was astounding.

Danny agreed to sell the coin to me and I was anxious to check it out further. After taking several photos of the coin in the plastic holder, I thought to myself: “How prophetic it was that this young man bought this thing in a holder that said ‘I GOT LUCKY IN WASHINGTON, D.C.’!’

After taking the pictures, I decided to call Fred Weinberg to see if any major errors had been reported on this 4-coin series. Fred said no, only a couple slightly off-center pieces and a partial collar - no “biggies”. Another WOW!!!

I then decided to take the coin out of the plastic key ring to get better images for publication. When the coin was extricated and I looked at it, the balloon popped, the wind came out of the sails and my stomach turned flip-flops. The coin was a normal 2009-D cent!

What happened?!

I soon realized, after now looking at the opened plastic container, that the “multi-strikes” I had seen were actually, impressions of the coin on each side of the plastic. Evidently, when the coin was heat sealed in the key ring, it had shifted a bit, creating the multi-strike I saw “on the coin”. Dadgum it!!!

It just goes to show you that sometimes things are not as they seem to be, and I was negligent in not following through as I should have to ensure the error was an error and not a normal coin masquerading as such in a plastic surrounding. Lesson learned.

P.S. And yes, Danny was (and is) very pleased with the money he received for the “error”!

For more information about the Combined Organizations of Numismatic Error Collectors of America (CONECA), see:
https://conecaonline.org/

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web