HI Everyone 1968 Penny 7/8

@tad, your pic is a little blurry but we see this sort of thing quite often. The 8 in the date has taken a hit and some of the metal has been "smushed" into an angled line. This pattern of damage seems to have occurred frequently with those old fashioned bubble gum machines.

Looks like damage to me.

Most definitely vending machine damage. And, to the CCF!

At the risk of piling on, yes, it's damage. As noted above, we see this more often than not. Old/vintage coin vending machines were quite rough on coins--especially if the mechanism was in need of adjustment/calibration.

Yes, we all agree it resembles a seven - otherwise you would not have noticed it either. But experience and the combined expertise behind the members of this forum is giving you factual information that this is post mint damage. Those of us with an interest in coins have handled thousands of coins including enough to notice what we easily recognize as legitimate errors or damaged coins.

Coins like yours have shown up here on this forum before, and will continue to.

Look at the left part of the 8 - its deformation on its left obviously shows it took a hit and caused the metal to move over.

Your other option is to waste a bunch of money sending it to a professional grading service who will charge you to tell you the same thing. We have people here that are every bit as skilled and knowledgeable as the people these companies employ.

Note the difference? The top is raised, but the lower part near the base is not showing the foundation to look like that. So just the upper area is altered. PSD.