1997 Lincoln Memorial Cent - What Caused This?

Just to clear up some statements coppercoins states to help me better understand,
" The rim is further assisted by the bevels at the edges of the die, which helps form them "
1st the rim is partially formed before the die strike, and then at the die strike the rim is assisted(or made more defined and finished which would make the rim larger)?

I took a look at this yesterday and my feeling was that it is a stuck through a foreign object. Since the letters (the T and A) were seemingly untouched, this gave me my first indication of what it was. If the letters had some damage, then I would have said post mint. As for the damage to the rim. Chuck is right, the rim is made before the strike, however, it is further formed by the collar which prevents the excess metal from the planchet escaping and making it into a broad strike.

If the foreign object was near the collar when the planchet was struck, I imagine that the impact area would be grooved vertically (movement of the excess metal) as shown above the first T. The second T also appears to have a grooved area on the inside rim which also may be from this anomaly.

It also appears that the die is beveled downward in that area, but that could be from the light's angle.

I just answered a similar question over in CONECA's forum and both Mike Diamond and myself agreed that a strike through is hard to evaluate from a picture. One big clue that Mike did give is that when observing the area that the strike through occurred, there should be no metal higher than the surrounding field where the indent has occurred. This would be pushed metal and indicate post mint damage.

BJ Neff

It almost looks like the date in size. Could you coin be a 2001? I can see (imagine) some of 2001.
I was thinking maybe somehow it got stuck by another coin that flipped into the process of it being stuck just at the edge where the date portion of another might have got caught where the date is located.
A raised date on one coin pressed into another would maybe leave an impression rather than a raised mark. Oh well, just thinking. (See my Disclaimer)