Important Years?

Errors can occur on a coin from any year, the actual year minted has nothing to do with it. However, since most errors have a dramatically different look from a normal coin, you will not find too many circulating about. What you may find is an incomplete(clipped) planchet, off center strike, blank planchet, struck through, etc.

As far as varieties go, you will need a magnifier to have any luck at all. Any die variety that is obvious enough to been seen with the naked eye will probably not be found in circulation, i.e. 1955 and 1972 DDOs. There are a few exceptions to this, like a member here who discovered a major DDR Lincoln from 1982, but the odds are not good. As someone who is not that far removed from college myself, I can certainly vouch that a Friday night on the town is more costly than a 7-10x magnifier

Wide and Close AMs(along with small and large dates of various years) are hub varieties so they are a design difference and doubling is not involved. If you just look for the hub varieties, you will miss many die varieties(DDOs, DDRs, RPMs) that you will not see without a magnifier. Also, you are searching blindly if you do not have a good reference book. No one could possibly list everything to look for with Lincoln Memorials because there are just too many. I would recommend David Lange's The Complete Guide to Lincoln Cents or Charles Daughtrey's Looking Through Lincoln Cents- Chronology of a Series. Chuck also has a very good website http://www.coppercoins.com/

Welcome Shadowg909,

"I can certainly vouch that a Friday night on the town is more costly than a 7-10x magnifier".

Right you are. For a friday nite out I can have the magnifier, and a good book or 2 from Amazon. On that same friday nite I will have increased my information data-base on what to look for just by searching back throught this error variety forum's previous post's and saving pictures into a coin beta file for reference. I also am looking forward to Billy Crawfords new DVD reference on penny's from 1959 to now. I'll eventually get Ken Potters book "Strike it rich with pocket change" and theres "The Modern Minting Process/Minting Errors and Varieties" by James Wiles, it's $40 if your a member of the ANA or $70 if not, (I hope I got that one right). I also think Chucks web site "Copper Coins" is a great site, loaded with information and inspiring photos of the finds that are just waiting for us to patiently unearth. Also Bill's site http://www.askaboutcoins.com. He has monthly newsletters that are informative and inspiring as well.

Until I can get my hands on a coin microscope I use a 14X Coddington by Bausch & Laumb. It's too small (I cant see the whole coin), but I love the extra magnification over my 10X. You may wanna talk to some one in the geology department, they use the same magnifiers (10X) for mineral collecting.

Happy Hunting

Scott