1950 D Lincoln Wheat Cent Mint Error - Clipped Planchet (How To ID Clips)

Question about "die draw".
Is that the possibility of metal, from the planchet, "sticking" to some part of the die as the coin and die separate after the strike?
I've noticed that effect on the surface of some devices and had to look closely to confirm what I was seeing.

Hmm, not so sure. My opinion is that the 24-P is also a counterfeit, or at least it has been messed with. This one is more obvious even than the 50-D. Here is the evidence:

The obverse shows an extreme amount of "Die Draw", beyond any reasonable expectation. Also, there is a lot of device distortion, especially at the edges of the rim where it merges with the "die draw" ridge, and on the "4". There is no reason the "4" should be distorted in the minting process, and in fact if the die draw was real, the "rim" that it created would have protected the 4 from wear. But the distortion does not look like wear. My theory is that the person who created this "straight clip" used a metal shear, and probably placed a small piece of leather or wood under the coin to minimize the damage done by cutting. They did some touch up to make the cut look more realistic, and the overall result is the distortion seen on the features. Here is a close-up crop of the area in question:



The reverse shows a more telling sign of tampering: a wire edge at the "clip". This wire edge is uniform across the whole clip, and shows some jagged features. My further theory is that once the cut was made with the shear, the edge of the cut was pushed-down similar to what we still see on the 50-D. The counterfeiter was not happy with this result, so used a tool to burnish the metal to push it up on the edge, creating a false "wire edge" to the coin. There is nothing in the minting process that can explain this, not even "Die Draw", so it must be post-mint IMO.

I would expect if we were able to see the edge of the "clip" on the 24-P, we'd see further evidence of tampering. The edge has been so upset by shearing and burnishing that it is nearly the full width of a normal rim! No way IMO this could happen during minting.




Edited to add:

I realize this revelation that their curved and straight clips are likely counterfeit might be unwelcome to @tropicalbats and @Stoneman, but I'm hoping that properly identifying counterfeits is more important to them than the value of their individual coins. I place a high value on correct information to the numismatic community, and I believe the analysis I have provided is correct, ie both the 50-D and 24-P coins are counterfeit. I am not 100% sure that the 71-S coin I posted is NOT counterfeit, but it does not show the obviouse post-mint tooling that both the 50-D and 24-P show. I do plan to look for more clips I have in my collection, and possibly view/purchase more of these from local shops, to see how prevalent counterfeit clips are in the hobby.

I think you're missing the basic premise of the thread. @Tropicalbats stated in his second sentence in the OP:

"how to ID legit clips"

I'm not sure how much money we're talking about, but per the basic premise, there are "illegit", ie counterfeit, clips out there. Unfortunately, IMO @Tropicalbats chose such an illegit clip to put forth as a representative example of a legit clip. Again this is only my opinion, based on my critical viewing of the posted images of the clips, Yeoman's knowledge of the minting process, and basic knowledge of metallurgy. The 24-P clip posted later IMO is also a counterfeit, so it would seem that perhaps it is more difficult than folks knew to authenticate "real" clips.

This is from a 1946S and I believe it is showing the same clip characteristics as the 1950D. It would seem shallow clips retain this ridge for reasons not clear. Are the dies slighlty conical allowing for some room by the edge? I can't imagine these all being counterfeit.

Yes indeed, IMO that's what a legit clip should look like. Beautiful! The die made contact with the planchet up to a point, then the planchet metal which "squeezed" into the space between the dies falls-off gracefully on both obverse and reverse. Every detail where the die struck the planchet is sharp except at the very edge where the metal edge starts to fall off. There is virtually no comparison between this coin and the 50-D and 24-P. An excellent example, thank you.

This real or fake clip thing would make a nice article for Mike in Coin World magazine
John1

I've collected dozens over the last 50 years; incomplete planchet strikes, double and triple clips and even a tiny, tiny clip on an uncirculated Peace dollar. Each one is different, interesting, and they are some of my favorite error types. They also give us insight as to what happens during the minting process.

I'm learning more about these as the replies and explanations are posted. Thanks to Bats for originating the topic and thanks everyone for educating me on what to look for and shy away from.

I hope you don't mind my posting this image, but I just love this coin and I think it fits in perfectly with this topic and I somehow missed out on the thread back in November.

Very nice example of a straight clip.