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Found In Rolls is Back!

Friday, March 26th, 2010

I have added the “Found in Rolls” website to Ask About Coins!
Each section of “Found In Rolls” has been added as a post so that navigation from one section to another becomes fun and easy!

You can start on the “HOME” page by simply clicking on the title of the post to open up each page! The top of each page will provide links to the previous post or to the next post so that you can easily navigate from one page to another.

In fact, the top of this page has a link to the “Found In Rolls” – Tokens and Exonumia page. Click on that link to start your journey!

As an alternative, you can use the menu feature to browse by using the CATEGORIES list. Simply open the drop down list and click on “Found In Rolls” !

At the bottom left of each page, you will see a link to the “older entries” use that to view the rest of the “Found In Rolls” pages.

You will see pages for:

Tokens and Exonumia
World Coins
Coins of Mexico
Coins of Canada
United States Die Varieties
United States Error Coins
United States Dollars
United States Half Dollars
United States Quarter Dollars
United States Dimes
United States Five Cents
United States Cents

As I can, I will be adding images to the pages. The pages for the CENTS, NICKELS and DIMES have some special features that you can see when you check them out. I will be adding the same features to the other pages as I continue to add images of more coins to each page.

After you are done checking out my “Found In Rolls” Collection of “Fabulous Fun Finds”, Click on the links to the ARCHIVES to view my other numismatic writings!

Have Fun,

Bill O’Rourke

Member:
ANA (American Numismatic Association)
NLG (Numismatic Literary Guild)

Posted in Collecting, Die Varieties, Error Coin, Found in Rolls, Mexico, Non-United States Coins, canada | Comments Off

What Are Pennies (Cents) Made From?

Saturday, April 18th, 2009

What Are LINCOLN PENNIES (CENTS) Made From ?

The Composition of Lincoln cents has changed over the years. Some cents made of the wrong metal can be worth as much as $40,000.00 so you may want to read the following!

To start with most cents that appear to be of the wrong composition are probably plated or tampered with. This is not always the case but in a huge majority of cases the coins are not what they appear to be.

Here’s what is NORMAL !

Lincoln Cents minted from:

1909 to 1942 – BRONZE (.950 copper, .050 tin and zinc)

1919 Lincoln Cent

1943 – STEEL coated with ZINC

1943 Lincoln Cent - Zinc-Plated Steel

1944 to 1946 – BRONZE (.950 copper, .050 zinc) actually from salvaged WW II cartridge casings.

1945 Lincoln Cent

1947 to 1958 – BRONZE (.950 copper, .050 tin and zinc)

1958 Wheat Ears Reverse Lincoln Cent

1959 to 1962 – BRONZE (.950 copper, .050 tin and zinc)

1962 Doubled Die Obverse

1963 to 1982 – BRONZE (.950 copper, .050 zinc)

1976 Lincol Cent

1982 to Present – COPPER-PLATED ZINC (.992 zinc, .008 copper , plated with pure copper)

1990 Lincoln Cent - DAMAGED with ZINC exposed

So That’s it in a nutshell! Another article will tell you what to look for to find that $40,000.00 JACKPOT COIN!

Posted in Collecting, Error Coin, Mystery Coin, Novelty Coin | Comments Off

Using Diagnostics to Identify Die Varieties : Part 1

Thursday, April 2nd, 2009

A Series of Poorly Struck Lincoln Cents

Using diagnostics to attribute coins is a two sided issue.

The coins shown here are to point out that what someone sees may not be a diagnostic of anything specific.

The first example shows a coin with a weak E in the motto “E PLURIBUS UNUM”. The coin is dated 1971 D. The weak E can be seen on many coins of many dates and by itself is not a diagnostic tool for anything in particular.

The rest of the coins show similar weakness on the letters STATES OF.

Weakness of strike will cause the lettering on this portion of the coin to show up with various degrees of weakness (or sharpness) of the lettering. It is very common to see different degrees of weakness in this area.

The idea here is that you can’t look for one diagnostic item listed in a guide and based upon that diagnostic alone decide whether a coin is a doubled die or another desirable coin.

Take for example the 1983 Lincoln cent DDR FS# 1c-036 (The big one) . The coin is supposed to have weakness on the words UNITED STATES.

It would not mean that every 1983 cent with weak lettering on UNITED STATES would be a doubled die. Common anomalies do not by themselves allow us to attribute a doubled die for example.

It is often a group of many diagnostic markers that would be used to determine if a coin is one that would be a “keeper”.

The things seen on these coins are on a group of coins that I randomly looked through in about 15 minutes. The “diagnostics” seen on these coins don’t indicate anything. They just happen randomly as coins are being struck.

Posted in Collecting, Die Varieties, Error Coin | Comments Off

Making Sense of Cents !

Thursday, April 2nd, 2009

In the United States, we do not mint pennies. What’s that? You might ask! That’s right, although they have commonly been called pennies for generations, they are really a denomination called a CENT.

Look at the coins, They have the words ONE CENT on them. CENTS and HALF CENTS were first struck for circulation in 1793 under the authority of the United States Government. Those ONE CENT coins were larger than today’s modern cents (larger than a current quarter dollar) and the weight of a CENT was, by law to be exactly twice the weight of a HALF CENT.
LARGE CENTS were produced from 1793 to 1814 and from 1816 to 1857. There were none produced that are dated 1815 due to a copper shortage at the time.

SMALL CENTS were produced for circulation starting in 1857 in the form of what is known as a FLYING EAGLE CENT. Some specially produced FLYING EAGLE CENTS dated 1856 also made it into circulation but they were not really supposed to. From 1859 to 1909, different versions of the INDIAN HEAD CENT were produced.

Indian Cent Reverse

In 1909, INDIAN HEAD CENTS were produced as well as the new LINCOLN HEAD CENTS. We are actually celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Lincoln cent in 2009!

1909 Lincoln V.D.B Cent

The LINCOLN CENT was modified from the WHEAT EARS type reverse to the LINCOLN MEMORIAL type reverse in 1959 and is still being produced today. The CENT is the equivalent of 1/100th of a dollar.

Lincoln Cent Memorial Reverse

So, whats a PENNY? Although the dictionary includes as a secondary definition that the “PENNY” is a cent of The United States or Canada, The Primary definition is that a PENNY is a coin of Britain equal to 1/12th of a Shilling or 1/240th of a pound.

1918 ONE PENNY of Great Britain

Since 1971, The United Kingdom began to produce a penny that is the equivalent of 1/100th of a pound. The coins was called a NEW PENNY! After a few years and as the public in Great Britain got used to the NEW PENNY, the words ONE PENNY were again placed on the coin.