The Next Time Searching 1943 and 1944 Cents

[Justafarmer]

Keep an eye out for the 6 obverse dies with the following mint mark placements. These are the obverse dies used to strike the 1943 D & S bronze cents and the 1944 D & S steel cents. I was surprised to find that two different obverse dies struck the 1943-S bronze cents and the 1944-D steel cents.

[jfines69]

That is interesting... That indicates the coins were minted in different runs... Makes me wonder how many were actually struck vs the number that got out... Did the mint realize they had the wrong planchets and have to dump thousands or were the wrong planchets just a couple that had been tossed in to a few different bins???

[Justafarmer]

I don't know how many coin presses the Denver or San Francisco Mints used for coin production. One explanation I have read is these off planchets were not cleaned out from the blank feeder on the presses. Which would mean all the off planchet coins should be VEDS and the first coins struck that year. But also believe such a problem would have been caught and remedied by QC when sample strikes were captured to verify dies were properly installed.

[GrumpyEd]

Or it could be at a random time during the year. A planchet left in a bin that wasn't used for a while, one stuck someplace on machinery, a maintenance person that had some old coppers in their box and used them while working on a machine and left one, a worker that tossed an old one in the flow, it could be upstream from the presses like where they upset the blanks.

[Justafarmer]

I agree with the idea these coins were produced in a more random circumstance as opposed to the press feeders not being properly cleaned. The fact there at least two different obverse dies striking the 1943-S and 1944-D sways me further to that direction of thinking.

[GrumpyEd]

The mint is pretty good at making one in a million goofs because they make many millions of coins. Even managing to ship out the wrong things mixed in with other coins like their test coins like the "Martha Washington" test coins (search google images for "martha washington test coin" and there are lots of them) probably every one that exists somehow got out by being in a bin or something and mixed in with normal coins and similar things could happen with planchets.

[Petespockets55]

The mint is pretty good at making one in a million goofs because they make many millions of coins. Even managing to ship out the wrong things mixed in with other coins like their test coins like the "Martha Washington" test coins (search google images for "martha washington test coin" and there are lots of them) probably every one that exists somehow got out by being in a bin or something and mixed in with normal coins and similar things could happen with planchets.

thanks. Makes for an interesting read.

[Justafarmer]

May have found a 3rd Obverse for the 1943-S Bronze Cent.

[jfines69]

May have found a 3rd Obverse for the 1943-S Bronze Cent.

Are the images you using of coins yours images or some one elses??? If they are some one elses you need to have express written permission from the owner to post them here... It is a copy write that can cause issues for the LCF... If they are not yours please delete them!!!
Thanks,
Jim