1988 Cent , Die Scratches, Polish Lines, Or ?

The pictures that you show are of a heavily abraded Lincoln Cent. The reason behind this was more than likely to remove a, or possible multiple strong die clashes (multiple seems a better fit in this case since even the designer's initials were abraded off during the process to remove the die clashes).

For those of you not familiar with the term die clash, this happens when both obverse and reverse dies come together WITHOUT a planchet in between the two dies. The result is a ghost, mirrored impression of each die being left on the other die. Generally on the Lincoln Cent, the die clash will be seen in the bays of the Lincoln Memorial building as an outline, in reverse, of Lincoln's bust (obverse) and in particularly strong examples, part of LIBERTY, especially the Y, will be seen. On the obverse, the affect is called a "prisoner cent" since the columns (mirror impression) of the Memorial building are around the head (and sometimes on the head in strong examples of die clashes) of Lincoln's bust making it appear as if he were "behind bars".

Normally, when a die clash happens, if it is not strong, both dies are abraded to remove the mirrored impressions and put back in service. However, standards differ for the obverse and reverse dies and you will find that a much large percentage of reverse dies are put back into service after a die clash than the obverse die. I have seen examples of reverse die clashes that showed five separate hits that were still in service, while I have yet to see a obverse with even a doubled clash.

WAVYSTEPS2003 aka BJ Neff