Learn how to identify error coins yourself… After watching this video, you should be able to tell if you have a legit DOUBLE DIE coin or not — along with many other types of error coins!
RELATED VIDEO: RARE Coins You Can Find In CIRCULATION
RELATED ARTICLE: The Most Valuable ERROR COINS & Varieties
Many people ask me about coins found in circulation they think might be ERRORS. Some are — but many aren’t.
Ready to see some REAL errors next to some altered pieces or fake novelty coins? Watch to this video see if you have any real, VALUABLE error coins! You will learn how to identify error coins yourself.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Hey! This is Josh with The Fun Times Guide and I want to address some very common questions people have about error coins and variety coins.
You know, at TheFunTimesGuide.com I get a lot of questions about weird looking coins that people think are errors. And, in some cases, they are errors. They’re real bona fide errors — and they’re worth between, you know, goodness a few bucks to a few thousand dollars — based on the error in question and how drastic it is or whatever.
I would say in most cases, the coins people ask me about are not errors but rather they are either damaged coins or altered coins or novelty coins. So I’m gonna look at with you here a few of the coins or types of coins that people ask me about most commonly.
I would say the coin that most people hope they have when they show me a coin that has doubling on it is the Doubled Die. This is a very popular type of Mint variety that is made essentially when the hub (which creates the image on working dies) when the hub and the die meet twice at different angles, that will generally create a doubling of the main image. Normally, the doubling is not that extreme and it’s seen on just one side of the coin. In this case here, I’ve got a 1972 doubled die obverse Lincoln cent.
The doubling is actually — for a doubled die — pretty prominent. You can see it with a naked eye. Maybe you can see here in this video. The doubling is in the date. It’s seen in the inscriptions Liberty and In God We Trust to some degree. A piece like this is worth a couple hundred bucks or more — as are many other very popular doubled dies.
The thing about doubled dies is that all bonafide double dies are varieties. The ones that are worth a lot of money are the ones you can see with the naked eye and are very popularly collected doubled dies. I mean, a double die that shows a very minor little variation that you have to see under a 5X or 10X magnification and is not well documented… yes it’s worth keeping. But it’s not gonna be a valuable error.
More commonly, the doubling that I see on coins people are asking about are actually what we call machine doubling — or die deterioration coins. Those occur when the dies are aging and they either start slipping during striking, or the coins shift during striking, and thus the doubling is caused not by a doubled die but rather by a little shift in the coin as it’s being struck or because the dies are starting to wear down and showing some anomalies. So that’s the doubled die for you.
Now about the coins that are not really errors or varieties…
One of the most commonly encountered coins when it comes to things that are kind of unusual are these so-called plated coins. Coins that are regular, normal coins — but were plated by a different kind of a metal from somebody outside the Mint. In this case here, I’ve got a 1976 Lincoln cent that was plated with gold. Now a lot of folks who don’t really know errors very well would see a coin like this and think, “Oh, is this a gold penny that the Mint made? And if so how, rare is it? How much is it worth?
Is it some kind of special presentation piece? No, unfortunately it’s NOT an off-metal error. Those are real.
And there are off metal errors that are very valuable. But 9 times out of 10 (or even more scarcely), you come across a coin that appears to have the wrong metal it’s just a plated coin. A piece like this is worth basically 2 cents for its copper metal value. And maybe 1 cent or so for the micron of gold that’s on this coin.
It’s not junk. I mean, some people would call this junk. It’s not junk. No coin is junk. But this is not a coin that’s an error. It’s not a variety. It’s just a really neat novelty coin — something which I’ve held aside. Something I would say if you come across to hold it aside. It’s different, you don’t see them very often, and they are neat coins — but they’re not errors or varieties. Along the same vein are the so-called colorized coins.
This is again a real, honest-to-goodness silver dollar 1922 Peace Dollar. What you see on it though is a bunch of paint. It’s a coin that was artistically, we’ll say, colorized by a private company or a private individual who decided to use this coin as his or her canvas for painting this neat image of an American flag with Miss Liberty before the coin on the obverse. And on the reverse, as per the usual Peace Dollar specifications, the American Eagle proudly standing upon a rock looking into a sunrise. Again, this is a regular coin but the painting on it, the
colorization, is NOT Mint made. It’s private and these pieces are basically worth their metal content. Right now, this Peace Dollar is worth about $15 for its silver content. You might get somebody who likes these coins to pay an extra buck or two for it, but they’re not valuable coins for the most part. They’re not errors, they’re not varieties, they’re not rare offerings by the Mint. These are private mint alterations often classified in the body of Novelty Coins.
Here’s some more exonumia for you… These are micro and macro (we’ll say) tokens or medals. We’ll start with the micro this is actually a pretty neat little set I came across many years ago from my coin dealer. These are miniature replicas of a Buffalo nickel. Well, rather, clockwise from the top in the noon position the Buffalo nickel, an Eisenhower dollar, a Washington quarter, a Lincoln cent, a Mercury dime, and Kennedy half-dollar. I don’t know why these coins are made, but I would suggest they’re probably made either for like a doll playhouse set or some other kind of novelty purpose. They’re not rare — not really scarce per se. They are collectible. These are actually… I’ve seen these in many collections. Because again, they’re pretty neat pieces. They’re worth as you see here a few bucks. They’re not errors. They’re not varieties. But they’re just pretty neat novelty coins.
On the other side of this size spectrum we have for these two 3-inch mantel pieces as I call them. They’re on my mantel in my home. This is an 1877 cent replica. The 1877 cent is a very rare key coin in the Indian Head series. I bought this for $2 at a gift shop in Florida. And you know what, it’s not an error… it’s not a variety… it’s not even a real coin. But it’s actually a pretty neat piece to have in my home and to show off. So I bought it and I keep it. In a similar vein, we’ve got this 1909-S VDB Lincoln cent. Again, the real McCoy is worth a thousand bucks, or more. It’s also (the real coin is also) much smaller than this one here. This is a 3-inch replica. Again, not an error, not a variety. It is, yes, the likeness of a rare date — but it’s not a rare piece.
So this is just a smattering of the kinds of coins and pieces I often am asked about at TheFunTimesGuide.com. Not all are errors. Not all are varieties. Not all are even real coins. But they’re all the kinds of things that many folks have and are asking about — and I hope that this video has helped answer some questions about what you might have in your collection and what those pieces are worth. And I wish you happy collecting!
