1922 Lincoln Cent - What To Do.

Usually I'm against cracking if there is any reason for the coin to stay encased.

In this instance it probably won't hurt.

Although I take photos of the obverse and reverse attach them to the same denomination, and put that in the dansco which satisfies the set and keeping the coin in the slab.

You know me, I like to fill holes. Crack it.

Just to be clear .. those saying to crack it ..

would put a weak "D" into the plain hole?

If I do not crack it .. I might do something like this ..

(what I did for my 1909 S vdb)

I am not a big fan of breaking open sets or slabs just to fill a blank in a book. If you have the coin slabbed or encased put a placeholder in the book that clearly identifies that you have it elsewhere. I do this for any of my higher-value coins (of which I have few), even those that I keep in 2x2's. I would prefer to have a protected coin that one in a book, especially if only one side is visible and unprotected.

What would be more impressive than a filled book would be a book filled with placeholders indicating that the collector has a slabbed coin. If I have a poor condition coin for the book that I am not worried about damage or wear then I might book it and keep the better coin protected.

Since the 1922 plain is a variety anyway, I would have no problem putting a nice weak D into that slot. I like seeing the holes filled, and personally, I think having a placeholder and tag is somewhat distracting.

I wouldn't crack a properly labeled variety like that. The more economical option for your album is to find a DP1, 3 or 4 no D to fill that hole.

I'd probably crack it and fill the hole with the lower value weak D variety and then buy a certified die pair 3 if I was inclined to have one. I'm still on the fence about getting a no D myself since it is an error coin.