1960-D Lincoln Memorial Cent Die Chips

I grateful that there are people who know the difference and have the experience to tell the difference between an actual error and one, because of a misunderstanding,or lack of the experience,or feel that because a coin has a "out of the norm" appearance, by that I mean I do not think the designers would want their design on a coin to be seen that way, that is in anothers eye's,NOT!
I am still unclear and am grateful for the advice I have received here.I do not collect to sell these coins, I do so because I enjoy the different die varieties, and the likes, ERRORS, just face it,you say,also I am not "suddenly" trying to make anything rare!!and am also not trying to quote passages and see things the way I choose to,I respect your OPINION, and see that you feel I am indifferent to the norm and therefore wrong?. Some of us are set in our ways. This also comes down to doing what you feel you want to do, I am not doing so at the risk of questioning the entire collecting community, I do believe that I am not alone in my opinion, and that being said, THIS IS JUST MY OPINION,not anything written in stone, or not to discredit anyone of knowledge or expertise, BE WELL, MIKE... PS:Rockdude, I am sorry I did this on your post...

Judging from the above quotes, you seem to think that every coin coming from the Mint should be a "perfect little work of art" but that is far from reality. Like all manufacturing processes, there are tolerances associated with coins- certain things allowed while certain things are not allowed. The tolerances have changed, i.e. tightened, over time with improvements in minting technology.

Using VAMs as an example, the dies for a Morgan dollar were used as long as possible so the maximum number of coins could be produced. The reason for this was that the branch mints could not produce their own dies- they all had to be shipped from Philadelphia. The Morgan dollar was also the most technically challenging coin to mint up to that period so it certainly was not an easy coin to produce. The dies were frequently reworked, polished, engraving details touched up, etc. This was part of the process that created all of those VAMs. George T. Morgan, the designer of his namesake dollar, was one of the ones who did this work on the dies so obviously in this case, the designer did intend for the coins to be released as they appeared. All of the small cracks and chips do not make the VAM but they can help identify the VAM and the die stage- they are known as die markers.

At the modern Mint, details are not re-engraved and the dies are not such a precious commodity since Denver is the only other branch mint and it has its own die shop now. Annealing technology has improved over the decades and modern dies are more durable but they are still affected by the wear and tear of the minting process. Current high speed Schuler horizontal presses have four die pairs, each capable of cranking out 750 coins/minute. Each die pair can produce hundreds of thousands of coins before being retired so that means that most dies last less than one day. They naturally develop small cracks, chips, and flow lines- these are all part of the aging process. The US Mint produces billions of coins annually and they cannot possibly all be "perfect" and the US Mint accepts that. If they wanted every coin to be perfect, the dies would have to be inspected every 15 seconds or so to make sure they were sound- obviously, that would be an impossible task and production would slow to a crawl so some imperfections are allowed. You also have to remember that the US Mint production area is not a clean, sterile environment. High speed machines flail about, little metal scraps are everywhere, and lots of grease is required to keep those machines going. Certain designs have inherent weak points and you will repeatedly see cracks and chips in those areas. Lincoln's head is frequently cracked on older Lincolns with the higher relief design, Washington has many cracks across the bottom of his bust, the Arizona quarter with "extra leaves", etc. The only way to prevent things like that from occurring in those specific situations is a complete redesign of the coin and that is not usually practical.

Some of the things that are not allowed are the true errors- clips(incomplete planchet), broadstrikes, double strikes, off centers, cuds(eminent die failure), etc- things that should be easily visible to the naked eye. I purposely did not list things like RPMs and doubled dies because those are die varieties, not errors but that is for another discussion. The US Mint recently purchased machinery with the sole purpose of removing misshapen coins which is why many of these errors have become much more rare after 2000 or so. These errors were never common to begin with but when you are actively removing them without human participation, they become even rarer. You could search through thousands of coins and never find one of the few errors I listed but you would find possibly hundreds of coins with chips, cracks, small strike throughs, etc. If it is occurring that many times, how could it possibly be considered an error and something that the Mint did not want to be released? Errors are anomalous while minor imperfections are virtually omnipresent.

BTW, I am not trying to single you out, just trying to deliver an edumacation and have a lively discussion This is a very technical hobby and many collectors have no idea how coins are actually produced other than the fact that coins are struck by dies. I am certainly not a profesional and Bill and Chuck are light years ahead of me but I have thrived on learning, reading, and undertanding since I was a kid- almost to the point of obsession Once you figure out how much work goes into producing a coin and all of the intricacies involved, some of the more mysterious aspects of numismatics become clearer. Terminology is also incredibly important. Without an accurate lexicon, this hobby is nothing more that the hoarding of little metal discs used in commerce

Well I tried to delete my last post. Didn't mean to offend anyone.

This tread is exactly why I love this forum. Through a difference in opinion a discussion begins, which escalates to a debate. And enough information about a topic is disseminated between members to fill a numismatic book. And everyone learns some new little part about the hobby. Which can only advance it and help everyone become more knowledgeable. Out of chaos, Knowledge! I LOVE IT

Probably a lump of coal in your stocking would be better than finding an odor eater.

It seems to me that the author's intent was to convey the same opinion I have of the Statehood Quarter doubled dies, die cracks, etc. They are all very minor and hardly of consequence. But hey...we all have opinions.

I guess I should do just a little editing on what I said earlier...

MOST of the Statehood Quarter stuff people are finding and reporting are too minor to be listed for any reason other than the fact they are on Statehood Quarters. There are a couple, namely Minnesota quarters, that are very interesting and very nice, but 95% of the stuff people are reporting (and authorities listing) are nothing more than 'doubled column' stuff, to take straight from my own series.

As far as I'm concerned, when something very minor comes into the mix and it's found that this very minor thing is VERY common across the board, one has to wonder whether it's worth the many thousands of hours it would take to catalog all of it....and for whom? Most people couldn't care less.

I've seen my share of Ocean in View nickel doubled dies that are nothing more than a small hump hidden in branches of trees. If I didn't have a normal coin to compare them to, I wouldn't spot them....and then to list every little hump found, eventually listing dozens of different dies that all look just about alike - what's the point?

I've listed some pretty minor stuff. I've even been accused of going too far on the minor side. I look at an article that shows pictures of tiny humps hidden in the trees with die numbers in the 40s and 50s (and higher) and just shake my head at the excrutiating headache those things have to be to attribute. And for what? Using a 30 power microscope to pick little humps on coins then spend hours to identify them CANNOT be fun...can it?