18 Coins That You Need To Know Are NOT Mint Error Coins
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Do you know what happened to this coin—or what used to be a coin? Do you even know what kind of coin it was? Based on the reverse, I can see that it is, or was, a Roosevelt dime. You can see a little bit of the design there. Looking at the edge, you can see that it had a copper core and outer clad layers. It’s very smooth and shiny, with a lot of different things going on.
This is just one of many coins I want to show you. Here’s an example of a post-mint cut coin. If this were a genuine mint clip, you’d see a flat area where the clip is, which would have affected both the strike and the planchet. This effect is called the Blakesley Effect. If a clip this large doesn’t show the Blakesley Effect, you know it was artificially clipped after leaving the mint. Additionally, this coin has solder on it—that is not an inclusion or part of the minting process. Someone applied silver solder and melted it onto the coin, likely for some other purpose.
Next, we have coins with markings all over the holders, like “weak nose” and “weak date.” These are just cases where part of the design was removed, either accidentally by a mint employee or due to late die stage wear. Die cracks are fairly normal and may be fun to find, but they don’t add much value.
What you’re seeing here is a coin struck by dies that had clashed, cracked over time, and been modified by mint employees to remove clash marks. This results in missing areas of the design. While this is technically a mint error, it is a very minor one and quite common. Some of the weak details may also be from circulation wear.
Now, here’s a dime with a hole in it. This was done artificially. Another dime here has some damage, including a slightly thicker rim on one side, which just indicates it might have been slightly misaligned during striking. You can also see a dent in the coin that pushed outward on the reverse.
Here’s a Mercury dime with a cut that didn’t originate from the mint. Again, there’s no Blakesley Effect. Someone artificially recreated this cut. People like to fool others by making fake errors.
This one was altered using heat—it’s a Seated Dime that was turned into a love token. The reverse has been entirely carved, and then the coin circulated afterward.
Here’s a counterfeit copper Roosevelt dime. This coin was supposed to be silver, but someone made it out of copper. It is not authentic. Another example is a plated dime—this was not done at the mint. If it’s gold-colored, it was plated after leaving the mint, and it is not solid gold.
Here are some examples of coins with deep cuts and gouges. These are not feeder finger scrapes or mint errors—someone intentionally cut into these using tools, sometimes even pressing another coin into them to create imprints. You can sometimes identify which coin was used to make the imprint.
This next coin is heavily damaged. It was likely run over multiple times in a parking lot. You see these a lot, but this kind of damage is never going to be a mint error. People often post coins like this in groups, but they are just post-mint damage.
Here are a couple more so-called “dryer coins.” These have been mechanically damaged, with pressure pushing in from the rim toward the center. This does not happen at the mint—there is no process in the minting facility that could create this effect.
This next one appears scraped. You could achieve this with sandpaper, though it looks like it was caught in a mechanical device that continuously ground it down. It may have been stuck in something like a belt or grinder.
Here’s a part of a bracelet—coins were commonly used in jewelry like this. Another example is a worn-down Roosevelt dime, so damaged that you can barely tell what it originally was. This is not a mint error, an adjustment strike, or a strike-through—it’s simply a coin that has been badly worn and weathered over time.
This next coin has solder on it. I’m not entirely sure what happened, but it was definitely melted and had solder applied to it. It looks like someone melted the solder, then beat on the coin, possibly with a hammer or punch, eventually breaking off a piece.
Finally, here’s another damaged dime that I’ve had for a long time. The reverse is smashed, and this was done with a punch, not during the minting process. If this had occurred at the mint, it would have been against the hammer die (the reverse die, which is stationary). The fact that the damage created a flat area means this was done after minting. It is not a strike-through error, as the damage is incuse rather than raised.
