Think I Found My First Coin Error

Thanks so much for the quick reply! That is good to know...like I said I am new to this and not familiar with the terms. Could you explain this to me a little more? How does this happen post mint? Is this worth anything or just a cool talking piece? Really appreciate the welcome and I will definitely stick around!

Here's a longer answer.

When you see coins like this it could be that someone may have wanted to make the coin look like an error, so a 2nd coin was placed on top and then was struck with a hammer (or something heavy) so that part of the lettering was transferred to the coin you have and causing the damage on the other side.

The fact that the lettering is incuse and reversed lets you know that a 2nd coin was involved. If a die had caused the letters, they would be normal and stand out from the surface and not be pressed into the coin.

There is a chance that this coin was caught in some kind of machinery to cause the same result, but it happened after the coin was struck, so it's not an error. Most double struck errors will have one side that has no damage to the rim, lettering or parts of the design.

This was my favorite double struck cent...



As you can see the reverse design is almost perfect while the obverse had a blank that was caught on top of the coin during the strike and it blocked almost all of the obverse design on the die from being transferred to the coin.

I sold this coin on ebay for a very nice price.

The value of your coin is a quarter and it's up to you if it's worth keeping and talking about.

It's always a thrill to find a coin that could be an error, but it doesn't happen very often. If you keep looking, you'll find an error from time to time.

Ben

As a beginner to the coin hobby, it is a good idea to keep hold of things like this as a sort of reference collection to compare other coins to. That way, if you find something similar, you can compare it to a known item, and determine if it is an error or just damage. It only costs the face value of the coin, and when you are familiar enough with errors and varieties, you can just spend the damaged ones!

Dave