Of all the varieties I have in my collection I must admit this one in particular is my favorite!
I believe it is the rarest variety in the
Lincoln Cent series for many reasons.
First of all it is the only inverted mintmark so far discovered in this issue.
1946 was unique as it had 3 distinct S mintmarks used, the Sans serif, Serif and Ball serif.
Of the three used only one has been found to have been inverted or punched upside down!
Although several working dies were used with the Ball serif mintmark only one was accidentally struck upside down. Imagine the singularity of that occurrence, of the 198 million coins struck with the S mintmark even if they were equally apportioned at 66 million for each type, the number of inverted coins must be incredibly small.
I have seen many mis-identified coins, even in "professional" holders, requiring extreme due diligence in correctly attributing this one.
In my opinion no serious Lincoln variety collection is complete without one of these truly rare specimens.
What do you think?