So there I was, tackling the ominous job of counting coins in the coin barrel that we've been saving for about 10 years, putting them into rolls and keeping the wheat cents, older nickels and the one silver dime. The very oddest thing I've found is that there seems to be an amazing amount of 1964 nickels in this change jar. So many that I thought that I'd save them and see how many I would wind up with, but then there were so many that I decided that I didn't want to mess with them all. Just seemed strange that I would have so many from that year collected from change in the last 10 years or so. But anyway -

I then espied me something that seemed to be odd, and I looked harder and saw a wheat cent, my first find in the lot, and I pulled it out. As I checked the date and flipped it over, I though - "what happened to this poor thing?" As I looked at it I thought that it could be a brockage or a die clash, but not knowing about errors, I set it aside to check out int the morning. As I understand it, a brockage would be incused, and this is not an incused image. As I also understand die clashes, they would need to be on moth sides and they would also be incued as well.This is only on the reverse and has what appears to be an image of Ole Abe Lincoln 'pushed through' into the reverse.

While I am sure that it isn't anything worth worrying about, I thought it wouldn't hurt to ask, so is it anything and if so, what type of thing is it? It would be cool if I actually found a type of error coin. I have only seen one in person and that was at a coin shop.

Here's a photo:



Thanks for any input.

Bet there is going to be a lot of speculation on what caused those pennies to look like that.
I have seen this many times, but not as dramatic as your examples. The only thing I can think of is that during the minting process one side of the die hit the coin much stronger than the other side of the die. Being as I have never seen a coin being minted I cannot be certain this theory is even possible. Just an idea to kick around.

Oh, I also noticed an enormous number of 64 minted coins... checking the Red Book I see that in 64 the p and d pennies, nickels and dimes had extraordinary high mintage numbers. Nearly a billion 64p dimes, over a billion 64d dimes, and nearly three billion nickels if you combine p and d mints. The pennies had about 7 billion minted for 64p and 64d total count. No wonder we see so many of them in our piggy banks.

Corky
(Hope I got those numbers close enough to be nearly correct )

Looks like a lamination error to me. Gas bubble in the planchet.

I agree with that looks like a bubble to me to

1) Does the bubble form there because that metal was deformed the least compared to the fields?

2) How much did you end up saving in the barrel?

Well, I found another one and it looks the same, so I truly doubt that it is a defect or rare or an error of any substance. Makes me wonder if it is a bubble then too... I mean what are the odds of the 'same' bubble-defect being on two coins with similar appearances?

And as far as how many I have saved from the barrel, well, it still has a long way to go. It is probably about the same size as a water cooler tank, and I have no more penny rolls. So far I have found only three wheat pennies, but then that's while I was pulling nickels and dimes out, and I wasn't looking for anything in the pennies at the time.

And at three billion(!) 1964 nickels, well no wonder! There must've been a sale on raw materials that year and the mint went nuts! I think I won't worry about 1964 anymore.

Over the years, I have also noticed this on wheat pennies, and restricted to the 40s. These pennies were always the same: a faint outline of Lincoln on the back, but no clash marks on the front. Would a bubble consistently conform to Lincoln's outline? Since it doesn't appear to come from damage to the die (clash), I can only guess the planchet is deforming just after the strike? Since I've never seen this in 50s pennies, I'm guessing this was a problem long since fixed. Those are just my guesses.

The mint produced those 3 bilion nickels because they knew people were going to hoard the silver dimes and quarters.

i dont think it is a lamination.. or a gas bubble... i think it is just from the dies wearing.. when you strike many many coins the dies will push on each other through the planchet... kind of like a transfer of energy through the coin being struck... that is my best guess to why this happens...

And that sounds like the most logical explanation of all.

Also remember that 1964 was a long year for minting coins, coins with that date were struck as late as 1966 or so. The mint was cranking out 1964 dated coins in silver well after the cupro-nickel coins came out in 1965, and well into 1966 and perhaps early 1967 because they had silver that had to go and be turned into coinage. Should have just kept the 1964-D Peace Dollars and not melted most if not all of them!

I also think that the reason that you see it on the reverse and not the obverse is that the reverse does not really have a major design element... some letters... and wheat leaves... but nothing major and deep like the bust on the obverse...

Probably the best example of "ghosting" is on late 1910s British pennies - the large and high relief obverse "sucked" a lot of the metal and often left a "ghost" image on the reverse.