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Welcome to the Lincoln Cent Forum Glossary.
Use the alphabetical links above to navigate to the desired term.

This glossary of terms was written and compiled by Will Brooks with the help of our forum members. A huge thanks to everyone who contributed knowledge, ideas, words, and photos to make this growing educational resource possible. Special thanks to Richard Cooper, aka “Coop” who donated many of the photos.

Face Value: The actual amount written on a coin or note that it is worth. Collectible coins usually have a numismatic value exceeding their face value.

Fair: A coin grading standard of 3. See our grading guide Here.

Fair Market Value: The amount that a coin can be expected to sell for on the open market at any given time.

Feeder Finger: A metal arm that clears a struck coin from the striking chamber while also bringing an unstruck planchet into position for the next strike. The feeder finger can occasionally damage the anvil die. (See Feeder Finger Damage.)

Feeder Finger Damage: Damage in the form of scrapes to the anvil die which occur when the feeder finger inadvertently rubs across it. On memorial cents, these die scrapes always show on the coin in a NW to SE direction and until the mid 90s, only on the reverse of coins, as the reverse die had always been the anvil die up until that point. Inverse die installation began in the mid 90s, but thus far there are no known examples of obverse feeder finger damage on Lincoln cents.  On older cents, such as this 1944S wheat pictured below, these feeder finger scrapes exhibit in a N-S direction.  I am currently unaware of when the angle of the feeder finger to the die was altered. That coin and photo are courtesy of forum member Roller.

FG: Frank Gasparro’s initials seen on the reverse of Lincoln Memorial cents at the bottom right of the memorial. The font of his initials has changed 7 times during the series run, which can be seen at varietyvista.

Field: The flat, plain portion of the face of the coin that contains no design elements.

Filled Die: See Struck Through Filled Die.

Fine: A coin grading standard of 12-15. See our grading guide Here.

Finned Rim: Either a portion of, or the entire rim of a coin that is pushed up perpendicularly to the coin face as a result of excessively high striking pressure. This extra pressure causes some of the rim’s metal to squeeze into the space between the neck and the collar in the striking chamber. Image courtesy of liveandievarieties.

First Strikes: A “First Strikes” designation is a very misleading term used by some third-party grading services on their holders. It denotes a coin that was released from the mint in the first month of a year’s production. This is extremely misleading as most of these coins are not in fact among the first ones struck from any given die. A die pairing can experience a full run of a million coins in a matter of days, therefore you can have very late die state coins with a “first strike” designation. A better term for these coins is “Early Releases” which NGC, to their credit, has now adopted for their holders.

Fivaz-Stanton #: Bill Fivaz and J.T. Stanton are the authors of the “Cherrypickers’ Guide to Rare Die Varieties of United States Coins.” Their listings start with ‘FS’ for Fivaz-Stanton followed by a denomination code, followed by the date, followed by a variety code number:
101-299 for obverse die variety
301-399 for obverse date variety
401-499 for misc obverse variety
501-699 for mint mark variety
701-700 for misc variety
801-899 for reverse doubled die
901-99 for misc reverse variety.

Flan: An old-timers’ word for “planchet.”

Flip: A clear plastic or nylon coin-holder with 2 parts. One part usually holds the coin, while the other a descriptive insert. Some flips are made from plastic containing polyvinyl chloride (PVC) which will, over time, damage coins by leaving a greenish residue on the coin. Copper coins are especially susceptible to this damage. Take care to use mylar flips for long time safe storage of your coins.

Floating Roof: When a die is over-polished, the devices are often reduced in size, or in extreme cases, completely removed from the die. A Floating Roof is the name given when parts of the memorial building are polished away, making it appear the roof is floating in mid-air. See also Abraded Die, and No FG. Photo courtesy of forum member addictedtocoins.

Flow Lines: One of the aspects of die deterioration, flow lines are grooves that develop in the die from the cold flow of the metal from striking coins. Since dies are convex, the cold flow of the metal is outward from the center, and therefore these grooves manifest themselves radially toward the rim on the struck coins. The more coins struck by a die, the stronger these flow lines are, and therefore can be used as a determining factor of die state.

Flying D: A colloquialism used on the forum for a D mint mark which has die chip to the west making the D look like it has a wing or is in motion. These are often associated with a common die crack coming off the bottom tail of the 9 in the date and arcing back into the mint mark.  Images donated by Barzilla and Keith.

Formative Years in Indiana: The second of four reverse design variations on 2009 Lincoln cents made to commemorate its 100th anniversary. This is also known as LP-2. This reverse was designed and sculpted by Charles L. Vickers.

Frank Gasparro: The 10th chief engraver of the United States mint from 1965 to 1981. Among other designs, he was the designer of the memorial reverse used on Lincoln cents from 1959 to 2008. His initials, FG, appear to the right of the bottom of the memorial building on the cents. 7 different fonts were used for the initials during the series run. See FG.