1969 S Floating Roof Lincoln Cent

The floating roof is what I call an ebay fad term. Any device on a coin can be polished off. People trying to make a fast buck off of the unsuspecting will find common and non-valuable things like this, makes up a cutesey name, and hopefully snag some fish.

Unfortunately word get's around about the "rare errors" and more and more people who do not understand these types of thing are common get snared into looking for them.

IMO this type of stuff cheapens the hobby b/c it starts as bait by people trying to make sucker people.

Unfortunately grading companies also can jump on the bandwagon as well. Former president Ron Guth of PCGS once "discovered" a 1972-D half with the FG missing. Rather than dismissing it as just a normal die polishing event, PCGS decided to use their postion as an "authority" to make profits instead.
Read the essay in my signature and you will also see how PCGS is more than willing to label pieces showing the FG as being the "No FG" and people have been suckered big (!) bucks for slabs with high grades on them.

The proof is in the links in the essay. All links/data are direct from the PCGS website.

@Earle42 Excellent information!

And yet, despite being a "fad", in 8/2022 Heritage Auctions sold 2 1969 D No FG varieties for $192 and $288 each. Normal value for that coin in that grade is about $8.

Further, auction records support the valuation of this variety going back at least 10 years across Red, Red/Brown and Brown color grades.

These prices are being obtained at top auction houses and it is very unlikely that someone dropping $300 on a 1969 D cent is doing so because of a "cutesy" or faddish name used by an ebay seller to describe the coin. These coins are being consistently bought by intelligent, savvy collectors and not by gullible rubes who's have more money than sense and get lured in by flashy ebay sales pitches. To think otherwise is disrespectful to collectors with whom you don't agree.

We may not like what the market is doing, and I certainly would not pay $300 for that coin, but their are lots of coins I wouldn't spend $300 on so what I (or any other individual collector) think, believe or desire is not really material.

These records demonstrate and reflect an accurate assessment of the status of the market and the demand for this variety.

The appeal of these always escapes me.

I think the appeal is kept alive by newbies seeing these non-errors online (youtube, ebay) being called rare and legitmate coin errors. So the newbies try their hand at finding them and surprise, surprise (NOT) they find one of these valuable "errors."

Their excitement "tells them" they have something valuable (well, everything online is true right?). And so the ones who don't check online with a forum end up putting the common polished die on ebay for inflated prices where some other victim of online trends pays the price.

The slabbing companies see the market trend and, like any business, goes where the money is. So they start labeling slabs with this stuff.

That is why I say it cheapens the hobby.

It used to be a coin was valued on its mintage, mint mark, and availability. Error coins were pretty much like doubled dies clipped planchets, MADs, and, with very few exceptions, nothing like simple die polishing and die chips.

Yes BIE wheat cents had their day, but note when modern communications and the internet made is so simple for people to be told things like this were just simple die chips and not rare that these coins lost a lot of their following/value?

And then the die polished 3-legged buffalo is one that has kept its value as well as the 1922-P penny (OK - not a P!). My personal OPINION is that while almost everyone knows these were also polished die events, that they were a part of two of the most beloved types of coins series for so long that people still value them knowing they were just a die event and not real errors.

Although I find it interesting the 1937 3-leggers were only from one die pair. And the only other one you hear about is the 1936. These nickels are a lot more rare than the many "floating roof" examples that can likely be found for just about any Memorial cent issue.

Before the internet it was not so easy for an individual to sell to a HUGE market. When the 2005 nickel detached leg fad hit I was just shaking my head. What an obvious ploy!

Hmmm...new Buffalo nickels. Everyone likes Buffalo nickels!

Hmmm...the most valuable of the originals had 3 legs...so let's start trying to make a way to associate the 2005 nickels with the valuable one by finding some way to name a "leg error!"

And so common die polishing gave these people their money.

BTW - no bad reflection on those who went for the 2005 Buffalo. I understand the excitement of something new can draw people in. And even non-collectors liked the new Buffalo nickels.

And just where are all those used to be multi-hundred dollar varieties today?

Well, even though the costs are WAY down from the fad era, at least the "Speared Buffalo" varieties are a "legitimate error" being a cracked die.

@HGK3 Thanks for this info, but I was referring to the ones shown below slabbed as die breaks by ANACS. Not all that long ago someone on another forum asked me if they had anything special b/c they had found some of these in a bank roll from 2005.



Another of the same:



Are you referring to the one having the "spear" through the (more or less) center of the buffalo?

I feel we are at the beginning of a new and mostly untouched are for marketers to be enraptured by.

So many newbies get suckered into thinking they can get rich quick by finding rare coins in their pocket (thanks youtube click bait titles). So newbies finding these and sharing all over the internet their "rare" finds has been catching the ears of market savvy businessman. I believe a new field of slabbing to exploit is being created. Remember...IMO...business minded...not evil.

I saw recently where someone said an "IN GOD WE RUST" quarter was slabbed and labeled as such. If this is true, then we now have a Grease Filled Die event being "legitimized" and elevated to the level of a DDO, RPM, MAD, etc. What next?

I know...the "floating roof" variety...

...wait for it.