Thought I had a great find. A 1914-D!

[retiredcopper]

1914D.jpg

I had just opened a new box of pennies from my local bank. In the second roll I spotted the reverse of a wheatie, so I turned it over to check the date. I think my heart stopped for a moment. A 1914-D? After a few minutes, the excitement of my best find ever, while roll searching died down, so I took a better look at the penny and it just didn't seem right. When I laid it next to a 1914-P, it became obvious that it was a fake. The space between 19 and 14 was too big. Probably an altered 44-D. Nice job though. Had me all excited.

[GrumpyEd]

Another way to catch these other than the space is the mintmark style and if it has a VDB or looks like the VDB was removed from the shoulder (14-D has none).

[BadThad]

I hate that! Do the collecting world a favor and cut that thing in half and toss it in the garbage where it belongs.

[Maineman750]

I spotted one of those in a dealer's collection....I'm still not sure he believed me

[mustbebob]

That's too bad. Would have been an awesome find. Keep searching though.

[willbrooks]

Definitely an altered cent. I included an example of these in the glossary:

Altered (date, mint mark): A coin that has been intentionally manipulated, usually so that it appears to be a more valuable coin. The more common alterations are adding/removing mint marks and changing the date. A commonly altered cent is a 1944D which is altered to look like a 1914D as shown below. A genuine 1914D would not have the large space between the 9 and the 1 and would not have the VDB on the bust’s shoulder. Also note the incomplete removal of the vertical bar of the 4 where it meets the horizontal bar. Also shown below is a 1922D which has had the mint mark manually removed. Note the scratch marks where the mint mark should be.