Legal Counterfeit?

these may not be fakes.
The seller could be an employee at the mint and has stolen these from the reject bin

Irrelevant, a counterfeit is still a counterfeit regardless of whether it is purported to be an error or not.

Off Center errors are not as rare as you seem to think they are. OCs and incomplete planchets are the least expensive and most common errors available, Lincoln cents with these errors are typically worth $2-10.



Prior to ~2000, $50 canvas bags of cents could be purchased at banks for face value(all denominations were available in this manner). These bags were filled at the Mint and were always the best source for over- or undersized errors. The Mint now distributes coins in a different manner and the rate of errors leaving the Mint has dropped dramatically.

The Mint has introduced new machinery that eliminates the vast majority of errors(size exclusion separation) and errors are typically destroyed on-site with a waffler. Coins are also now shipped in bulk with metal frame Kevlar pallet bags to the armored carrier companies who then roll and distribute coins to banks. The armored carriers represent another layer of filtering and are supposed to return errors to the Mint for destruction but of course, not all of them are returned.

My aunt was vice president of a small local bank back in the 70s and 80's. Anytime that received new change in they would get it as loose change in bags. She would always go through the bags and pull out such change. I remember her showing them to me back then. It would be quit possible for someone at a large bank to pull many. My cousin still has them from back then. He just won't turn loose of them.

Through their bulk purchase program it is also possible for dealers or other persons to buy these Ballistic Bags as well. (You actually have to go to the mint and pick them up yourself and provide your own shipping. You also have to make arrangements to load them yourself. I know Silvertowne does this. I got to tour their processing rooms recently and they had Ballistic Bags up on a hoist feeding into rolling machines. They said they go out to the mint and get them several times a year, and of course when each new coin is released.

There's a machine called a riddler designed to catch these. A tray with holes just large enuf to let a normal coin thru.

If the coin tries to fall through flat, it won't fit, but if it lines up on the narrow edge, it can fall thru.

Riddlers have been around since the 60s, at least. I had a simple version back then.

Dated ones sell for more because they are more collectable. You've got one dateless, you have a complete set.

They had riddlers for years before 2000, but they started passing them through additional riddlers. If you have a riddler that catches 90% of the errors and you pass the coins through it three times you will catch 99.9% of them. Another reason why the off centers disappeared is because around 2002 they switch from the vertical striking presses to the horizontal striking. If you are striking vertically and the planchet isn't in the collar it sits there and can still be struck by the dies. But on horizontal striking if the planchet isn't in the collar it falls out of the way. (Gravity works) To get an off center it has to catch the planchet as it is falling.