I love error coins. I am especially intrigued by what seems to be an acceptance of said error coins by the general populace of the time.
Nowadays, I imagine that if you received such an obvious erroneously struck coin, you would google it and end up here on CCF. This is evident to me by the fact that people are bringing damaged coins here all the time in the hopes that they have struck gold.
This coin - French 5 Centimes was struck twice. The 2nd strike was off center and slightly rotated from the 1st. It "overwrote" part of the 1st strike, but left quite a bit. It seems to have circulated quite a bit despite its odd appearance. From a utilitarian point of view it figures that as long as the copper weight is correct, it is a spender. I imagine that if a coin like this could circulate without getting picked out by a collector, it is likely a rarer coin on account of that. Because at some point a circulated coin gets scrapped.
When I saw this coin, I knew I was buying it. I am a resaler, but this was a coin I wanted to own, study, and then pass on to a worthy collector. The price was a minor detail to work out.
I later found a Heritage sale of a similar coin which lets me know that I did ok.
Without further ado:

