French L'an 8 Bb 5 Centimes... Error?

Clashed dies?

The alignment on this coin should be standard coin alignment (not medal), but I won't know for sure till it arrives--it would be yet another treat to this coin if it were misaligned! Yes, the BB is on the reverse 6 o'clock, which would normally line up with the top of the bust.
I did some searching and I think you're right on the mark with 'ghosting'. I found an example via Google of an English penny on this website showing the same effect as what the French coin shows (See http://www.littlemistakes.com/World...not/not.htm).

The author is at pains to assert that ghosting is not a brockage error, but to my mind that distinction does not diminish the interest of ghosting! (It'd be nice if the author would say why it's so important to not confuse ghosting/clipping etc with brockages.)

I won't claim to understand how ghosting occurs, maybe someone here can give us a better picture, but it seems to have to do with the pressure applied to the metal on the obverse exceeding the amount applied during the strike to the reverse, resulting in the main obverse device 'peeking through' the reverse. Another website I found says that in some cases at least ghosting effects had to do with the metals used and that newer alloys were able to minimize its occurrence. (Cf. http://www.24carat.co.uk/1926modifi...yframe.html)

Thanks for the lead, KurtS!

-SC

Ah, I see, thank you for clarifying the distinction that the author was making. The difference is therefore between things that are in fact "normal" results of the minting process--due to design flaws--and things that are mistakes during minting--die caps, broken dies, brockages where multiple coins are struck at once, etc. The former tend to be less valuable on the market than the latter, since the latter are more rare occurrences.
For this coin, the question becomes: how often does one find ghosting in the type? A reason to take another good look at my other decimes... I'm just surprised that the literature doesn't talk about this as a common feature of these, whereas the George V coin seems to be a very well-known example and the fact that it was changed to respond to the problem is significant. The decime design doesn't seem to have undergone changes. Now, some of these were minted with bell metal, and maybe ghosting occurred more with these strikes.
I'm still wondering though if there isn't more going on with this coin than the ghosting. I'm looking forward to examining the reverse lettering more closely!