Counterfeit Detection: 1942 Double Struck Lincoln Cent Mint Error

Very interesting, I think the obverse gives it away? The head doesn't line up with the body correctly. Just looks wrong.

Yeah, it's all about the date. From the linked article: "It seems that perhaps the forgers created a date-less die so as to be able to use it on any date of Lincoln Cent."

This. Right before we all went into COVID-19 quarantine and coin shows vanished, I saw a sudden spike in these fake errors at shows. On these message boards, we have seen six or seven different dates (I can think of 1931, 1944 and 1946 off the top of my head), some doubled and some tripled. All of these were done with a weak transfer die. In this, they differ from the Chinese fake 1955/55 and Chinese fake 1951-D off center, which were struck with a single die.

I suspect that these crudely made rotated-in-collar fakes are not from China, but are a new entry into the counterfeit sewer. Domestic garage counterfeits? I haven't located them for sale (yet) on the usual suspect websites peddling Chinese counterfeits.