See 5 of the most popular types of ERROR COINS you can find in CIRCULATION today. In this video, you will learn how much U.S. Mint mistakes are WORTH!
RELATED VIDEO: RARE Coins You Can Find In CIRCULATION
RELATED ARTICLE: U.S. Error Coins List
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⚡TIMESTAMPS FROM THE VIDEO⚡
00:00 – 5 Error Coins Found In Circulation
00:36 – Doubled Die Lincoln Cent Errors
01:37 – Off-Center Error Coins
03:15 – BIE Lincoln Penny Errors
04:19 – Repunched Mint Mark Error Coins
05:22 – Die Clash Error Coins
06:18 – Damaged Coins That LOOK Like Error Coins
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TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, this is Josh with TheFunTimesGuide.com. I’m going to examine a few coins that represent the kinds of pieces I often get asked about at The Fun Times Guide.
Some pieces here are errors. Some are damaged coins. But they’re all the types of pieces that the average collector has asked me about in the past. And I want to take a moment here and address them kind of piece by piece, and hopefully answer some of your questions about value, about the importance of the rarity, or of the piece you’re looking at.
The first one we’re going to look at here is a very popular kind of error coin. It’s, in this case, a 1984 doubled die Lincoln cent. On this piece here (which you probably can’t tell in the video)… on this piece though, you’ll see on the obverse doubling of Lincoln’s earlobe. You’ll see upon closer inspection (again, you probably can’t tell here but)… there’s a doubled earlobe. Maybe you can see it right there.
This is just one example of the MANY kinds of doubled die coins that are out there. Some are very common. Some are worth a few bucks — especially pieces that are not very popularly collected. The 1984 doubled die cent you see here is actually one of the more popular doubled die coins. It’s a scarcer doubled die — not the scarcest, but it’s one of the scarce ones. It’s worth about $125 and up.
So this is a doubled die Lincoln cent. You can find these in circulation if you’re very lucky, and you have some patience, and you look at each coin you handle with a very close eye. Doubled dies are very very popular collectibles, and I love having this piece in my collection.
Another very common error (or rather, I should say a commonly encountered error) among the rarer class of all errors are these off-center one-cent coins. This one here… and you can see the price mark too… I got this many years ago…. this is a Lincoln cent that, unfortunately, is not showing its date. I don’t know what year this is — nor did the dealer from whom I bought this coin. It’s definitely a bronze Lincoln cent and it’s a memorial reverse
cent — so it’s made between 1959 (which is the first year of the memorial reverse) and 1982 (which is the last year of the bronze composition for Lincoln cents that were made for circulation). This is probably, gosh… 25% off-center. Somewhere in there… 20% off-center. Something like that. If this coin had its date showing, it’d be worth a lot more than the $5 to $10 that this coin is worth. I actually have here an example of a much more desirable off-center Lincoln cent. This one is about 65% off-center and you see its date and mintmark loud and clear. It’s a 1969-D (or Denver) Lincoln cent. Really, the fact that the date’s showing makes this worth a whole lot more than
if the date we’re not showing. This is worth probably $50 or so — maybe $65. If the date were not showing, it might be worth closer to $15 to $20 — so that’s why the date is important on these off-center coins. But again, any off-center coin, even when it’s 5% off… it’s still pretty neat to have in your collection and they are worth holding on to.
This is a pretty cool variety. It’s called a BIE cent. The reason why it’s called a BIE cent is because the die crack
or die break that occurred on the aging die that struck this coin… well, it formed a vertical die crack that was… it’s right between the “L” and the (I’m sorry rather the “B” and the “E”) of Liberty. If you look really closely, you can probably see the indication of like a capital “I” between the “B” and “E”. It’s right there — I think you can see it. That’s not a letter “I”. That is a die crack. It’s not intentional. It’s a pretty cool error (or variety). The BIE error is actually very popular — one of the most popular kinds of die breaks among all US coins. There are collectors who I know actually collect whole runs of BIE Lincoln cents from every year they can find. These are rather common. I mean, they run for $3 to $5 apiece — so they’re not, you know, very expensive. But they’re really cool varieties. And it’s a kind of piece you could find in circulation if you look hard enough.
Another pretty cool variety is the repunched mintmark. Which maybe you can see here… the indication of like a second “D” in the mintmark under the date — just below the primary “D”. Before the 1990s, US Mint officials would actually hand-punch the mintmark onto each working die. Not the coins themselves, but the dies that made the coins. So when that happened, every now and then… either due to a slip with a Mint employee’s hand or maybe the punch being incorrectly stamped… sometimes there would be cases where the mintmark would be stamped multiple times at different angles (or even different places on the coin) within the area where the mintmark would typically be found. These kinds of varieties are pretty common, for the most part — at least among Lincoln cents. They’re worth between $3 and $15, depending upon how drastic the doubling or even tripling the mintmark would be. But again, neat collectibles. You can find them in circulation if you look hard enough. And definitely real errors!
Another really cool piece are the broad, or rather the die clash coins. Die clashes occur when the 2 (the obverse and reverse) dies hit each other either when they’re stamping coins or between stamping coins. The degree to which the die clash happens varies quite a bit. This is actually a very mild die clash. It’s indicated here by a little raised concentric ridge that you can see mostly around the top half of the obverse — kind of near the rim across the motto “In God We Trust”. A piece like this is worth maybe a dollar or two. I happened to find it while roll searching — and it’s actually a very nice 1987 Philadelphia Lincoln cent. It’s uncirculated. But that die clash is pretty prominent — especially at the right angles. Pieces like this are worth holding on to. Now, what I have
here are coins that some folks think could be errors — but, in fact, are just damaged.
We’ll start with 19… gosh, I don’t even know what date this is. It’s a dateless Buffalo nickel. It’s a well worn Buffalo nickel. These are very common. In fact, unfortunately… though a beautiful coin, the way the date was inscribed in the die — it’s in a very high location we’ll call it. Like a very prominent or “proud” location on the coin.
So the date was one of the first pieces to wear off Buffalo nickels. And when the date was gone, the coin could no longer really be identified for what date it was — unless a collector used a special kind of acid to etch the surface part where the date is. And that would indicate the date.
You could be able to tell with the acid what date it was. Of course, that would ruin the value of the coin. But at least you could tell what you had. And in some cases, if you had a rare date, it’d be worth much more than a dateless version of that coin. But a piece like this with the date missing and/or the rim or edge worn smooth looks pretty striking (no pun intended). But it’s not an error, just a really well worn coin. What we have here are 2 modern coins. I have a 1976 Bicentennial quarter and a 1986 Kennedy half-dollar that show extreme environmental damage. It looks like rusting — pitting almost on the coin.
It’s not only rust. It’s oxidation. But they’re very porous coins. I happen to know… these are not my coins, but the person I got them from… he told me they were actually at the bottom of a fish tank for many years. So I guess the water and the salt (or whatever was in the water) reacted very well, shall we say, to these coins and, thus, pitted the services. They could look like errors to somebody who’s not really well attuned to what an error would look like. I mean, yeah… they’re spotted. They have this weird color. It could maybe pass for a Mint error to somebody who doesn’t know how coins are made at the Mint. Or maybe would think the metal is some kind of an off-metal error. But these are not errors.
Again, these are just damaged coins and they’re worth face value. I got them from somebody… from my grandfather… and they’re very important to me. So I’m gonna keep them no matter what grade they’re in or what they’re worth. So I’ll hang on to these. But if you come across coins like this in circulation, you can spend them if you’d like. They’re not worth anything more than face value for the most part — unless they’re made
from silver or gold or have other precious metal content. Again, not errors. Neat coins — if you like something that looks different. But not valuable. So this is just a rundown of some of the types of error coins that people ask me about. There are many more out there and please feel free to ask me any questions you want about coins on TheFunTimesGuide.com in the Coins department. I definitely appreciate your time. Hope this helped a little bit. And I wish you happy collecting!
