Damaged or deliberately altered coins that may be mistaken as Mint errors sometimes are interesting enough to be saved as examples even if they have no premium value.
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This 1965 Washington quarter dollar was sheared after it left the Mint, possibly in an attempt to fake an incomplete ("clipped") planchet, a legitimate Mint error. On this coin, metal extruded downward and around the lip of the reverse, something that could not have happened with a Mint error cut from the side of the coinage metal strip.
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Collectors call this an "11-cent piece." One side of a cent is joined to a side of a dime. In the view of the edge, you can see reeding from the edge of the dime peeking through. The more modern way of making such a novelty piece would be neatly to hollow out the cent (which is a tad wider) and tightly fit the dime into the shell.
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Some of the commonest questions Coin World receives are about plated coins. Here is the typical appearance of a copper alloy cent (in this case, a 1966 Lincoln cent) that has been thinly coated with mercury, then circulated briefly. The copper underneath is showing through. A metal that is liquid at room temperature, mercury used to be loosely handled in school chemistry classes, and many cents were given this treatment by fingertips.
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A machine gear is thought to have imparted what looks like reeding to parts of the edge of this 1982 Lincoln cent. The grooves are much wider than normal reeding on coins, giving a knurled appearance.
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All coins furnished by Bill Fivaz. A "shrunken" 1958-D Lincoln cent does not bear any overlapping wording or other raised marks like a 1901 cent also shown here, but its raised rim has been completely shaved below the rest of the surface to force the coin to fit into an encasement.
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Slanted final date digits on Lincoln cents are frequently reported. A close examination will often make it obvious that the numeral has been pushed to the side. Mechanisms to count and roll coins are the usual culprits. The numeral "1," as a single upright line, is most vulnerable to this kind of counting machine damage.
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This is not an exotic experimental piece from the Mint. It appears that a pin was once soldered onto the reverse of this 1901-O Barber dime.
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The extra marks on the rim of this 1901 Indian Head cent are visible in part and have the appearance of a deliberate design. Some finders might believe they must have been placed there by the Mint. Actually, this coin was forced into a frame, or encasement, of aluminum or other material on which designs and wording were stamped. The marks seen here simply overlapped the encasement.
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Close examination shows that the X on Liberty's neck on this 1896-O Morgan silver dollar was cut into the metal with a knife, not stamped. Do not be fooled by added marks that could suggest what you are seeing is some sort of official cancellation mark.
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Even more spectacular than the stray marks from the formerly encased 1901 cent elsewhere on this page, the raised marks just on the lower obverse rim of this 1891-O Morgan silver dollar present a mystery of origin - but they are not of any known Mint design and appear to have been applied after the coin was already well worn.
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Among coins that are the subject of inquiries presented to Coin World as possible errors, such pretenders are frequently encountered. But finders need not necessarily be disappointed. Sometimes they can take comfort in this advice: for the cost of a cent, or a quarter dollar, or whatever the face value of your circulation find is, you possess what could be regarded as a teacher's aid.
Take the two-headed or two-tailed piece. In the space of a year, Coin World might receive 100 reports of such a find. Some finders suspect an alteration but see no evidence of tampering, while others are sure they have a won a free pass to retirement money. Most are happy enough learning that novelty companies charge about $10 for these alterations. The method used in recent years, of hollowing out one coin and nesting another in the shell, leaves no readily visible line or mismatched reeding on the edge and can be very hard to detect.
The novelty combination of a cent on one side, dime on the other, is made more modernly in the same way, unlike the one shown here.
If people have to pay several dollars for one of these novelties, you may ask, why do so many seemingly wind up being spent for mere face value? First, think of the way the sales are promoted: amaze your friends, win bets, etc. The advertising is practically an invitation to carry the altered coin as a pocket piece. That a novelty coin gets spent accidentally from time to time is not surprising, especially when you reflect that a favorite place to show one off might be a bar.
Alan Herbert, in The Official Price Guide to Mint Errors, has even accorded "division" status and a separate chapter to "after-strike modifications." Among "collectible" modifications he has included two-headed coins, on a level with love tokens (coins engraved with love messages) and elongated coins (ones that have been mechanically rolled out to a thin oblong shape with raised new design or wording).
Here, Coin World presents photographs of various types of damaged and altered pieces from the collection of Bill Fivaz, co-author with J.T. Stanton of The Cherrypickers' Guide to Rare Coin Varieties.
Mostly, they are just coins on which people who otherwise would have had idle hands have worked out their frustrations or creative urges. Deception was not necessarily on their minds.
However, an example of after-strike alteration that is meant to be deceptive but is not outright creation of a counterfeit is "whizzing." This is artful abrasion, often by wire brushing but sometimes by other means such as sandblasting, to polish the surface of a coin and so give it the appearance of a higher grade.
Silver dollars and classic commemorative coins have been favorite targets of this practice in the past.
This presentation is by no means exhaustive concerning common alterations. You don't need to have been a Coin World reader for long to recall pictures of coins that have been partly "eaten" by acid or covered by glue. When allowed to dry just enough to carry away a design image from a coin, glue has also been used in making such a transference to another coin.
Coin World fairly frequently publishes pictures of these and other modified coins that readers report. Watch for more in the future.
