1996? Lincoln Cent With Smoothed Obverse

I still can see a 1996 but maybe its just an illusion

I'm leaning towards it being 1990.

The coin was struck through a heavy layer of "grease". By grease I mean any sort of lubricant. Its appearance is entirely typical of such errors.

The horizontal lines are planchet striations formed during the rolling of the metal stock sheet. The following photo illustrates the four stages of a copper-plated Lincoln Cent. It is a bit hard to see on the plated planchet but you can clearly see the same striations on the unplated zinc blank and planchet. When a coin is struck, the striations are almost always obliterated but they will be preserved when a coin is struck through a heavy layer of grease.

The majority of grease strikes are minor, fairly common, and typically ignored by most unless it reaches a level of severe obstruction such as your coin. It is a nice example with profound loss of detail, I could see it fetching upwards of $20 on ebay.

mikediamond,
Can you go into details as to the difference between a Greaser and struck through cloth please? I can't figure out how a Greaser would leave a cloth like pattern. Thanks.
John1

Thanks Bio.
John1

The experts have spoken and you now know what you have ... nice find indeed.




I caution against the prevailing rush to trust TPG to answer all our collecting questions ... the CCF experts have already done that for you at no cost but your time to post here.

This is a low value coin relatively speaking ... and grading fees alone will exceed the coin value ...

Nice find ... I would place it in a 2x2 and consider myself fortunate to have a resource such as the CCF to support the identification/attribution.

David