For Longnine

They exist for all the years in the 50's. The most common that I ever came across being 1957D. There was something wrong the steel that was used in that decade that caused whole lot of problems with with cents and nickels.

They also exist for the 60's but 1960P& D and 1961P&D seem to be the only years with Full BIEs. The rest are partials. Such as a 1961P U1/4 LIIB--a break between the I and B of Liberty that extends from the top down about 1/4 the way. Or a partial 1962 TIY C2/3 (Center2/3) etc... Every year in the 60's and even 1970 has something but most of them partials. Except 1969 which has no listings.

Keep in mind that the BIE handbook came out in 1972 so there's probably been more discoveries.

There's not a whole lot to go on. The only modern BIE I know of after the 1972 BIE book is the 1995 Lincoln. There may well be more out there but I'm not aware of any new references. I heard rumors and such that John Wexler was going to publish an updated BIE book but I've never seen it. It's sort of a dead speciality.

What are the dates? It would depend on when the break occured in the life of the die as to whether it's common or not. Uusually they do occur late from fatigued dies and may not be common. They can also occur very early for various reasons such as improper hardening.

Check out LIBERTY, see how the break between the B and the E looks like an I? That spells BIE

"BIE" was originally termed "LIB-I-ERTY" by Jim Johnson in Collectors Clearing House. It's become the generic word for any breaks in Liberty. There's also different shapes of BIEs, such as blobs, blocks curves, straddlers-(thin straight breaks hanging on one letter) and diamonds. One of the 1960D has a diamond BIE. There are also *many* die-cracks that were collected by the BIE Guild. Die cracks coming off of one of the letters and extending upwards or downwards were called Antennas. Die cracks between at least two letters were called Connectors. There's a 1951P with die cracks through all the letters in Liberty and is called "Grand-Slam" or an "Armageddon." Die chips in the bottom part of R were called skirts or "Skirted R." If it was only half a chip it was called a "mini-skirt." If it was the top of the R it was called filled R. There were so many combinations of filled R's along with filled 9's they were called R9.

They also collected die cracks and breaks that were not part of Liberty but still found on failed dies. Such as cracked skulls, devil horns, spiked-head, bow-ties, bullet to the head, pencil to the ear, dash dates, dot dates r-dates, goatees. There were also "smuts" which were breaks in the wheat-ears. A "smut" also being a grain blight. And one of my favorites, the Wart Nose:
http://www.coincommunity.org/galler...hp?pos=-5299

And a big "Thank You" for all of the information in answer to my question. I have one of those "BIE" Lincolns around here somewhere. I just saved it from change a long time ago because I thought it looked "funny". I'll have to look for that thing ...

Sometimes even dummies get lucky