THE MYSTERY OF THE MOVING MINT MARKS

Numismatic News reader Curtis Jordan of Michigan submitted an interesting coin in the form of a 1989-D Lincoln cent with a very low mintmark.

The Denver mintmark on his cent is positioned much further south than what was considered the normal area of placement during that era.

I use the term “normal area” because up until 1990 mintmark positions varied from die to die.

Starting in 1990, mintmarks stopped moving. They were placed into the master tools, i.e., punched into the master dies and from there transferred to the working hubs to the working dies or were engraved into the epoxy models and transferred down through the same sequence. This is bit of an oversimplification because the sequence of dates arriving at the epoxy was different for proof coins versus circulation coinage.

Up until that time all dies were made in Philadelphia without a mintmark where they were then punched into the individual working dies via hand punch. Placement of mintmarks prior to the 1990s could vary widely though there was a general target area in which engravers strived to stay within. Nonetheless, the variations in placement often strayed outside of the targeted areas and were still deemed acceptable for use.

This policy resulted in mintmarks that sometimes overlapped a bit into a date or other areas of design, or were positioned outside of a target area in any compass position, north, south, west, east or anywhere in-between. Other possibilities were mintmarks tilted way out of normal orientation. In some cases they were inverted 180 degrees from normal.

To read the complete article, see:
Mintmarks can move (www.numismaticnews.net/article/mintmarks-can-move?et_mid=726183&rid=238176646)

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