Collectors Corner^SM: The Collectibles Marketplace

Click image to enlarge.

To commemorate the discontinuation of the Lincoln Cent, we have been featuring in recent installments of this column (as well as throughout PCGS Insider) a number of Lincoln Cent subtypes, varieties, and error-varieties. Among them are the 1960-D Small Date Over Large Date; the doubled ear of some 1983-D, 1984, 1988, and 1997 issues; and the subsets of varieties known as the “Wide AM” and “Close AM” reverses. Other doubled die obverses like the 1995 and 1995-D with doubling of “IN GOD WE TRUST,” “LIBERTY,” and the date and the 1982 zinc small date with doubled “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,” “E PLURIBUS UNUM,” and “ONE CENT” were also mentioned. While all of these errorvarieties are challenging to find in pocket change or change-filled water bottles of pennies, they are attainable with enough diligent searching (and some luck).

We also highlighted the famous and more difficult 1955 Doubled Die Obverse Lincoln Cent with its dramatic doubling in every numeral of the date, the eyelid, lips, and nose, and every letter of “LIBERTY” and “IN GOD WE TRUST.” Although it is estimated that about 5,800 to 6,000 of these exist, they are still considered scarce to rare bearing in mind the substantial mintage of 330,958,200 cents made at the Philadelphia Mint in 1955.

There are three Lincoln Cent error-varieties, however, that are rare by any measure: the 1958, 1969-S, and 1970-S doubled die obverses. And when one considers that nearly 560 billion Lincoln Cents had been struck by the end of its run (more than five times its runners-up the Roosevelt Dime [116 billion] and the Washington Quarter [105 billion]), the rarity of these three, after decades of frantically being sought for in the wild, seems even more so. Let’s turn our attention to the third rarest: the 1970-S.

Closeups of doubled die diagnostics on 1970-S Large Date Doubled Die Obverse Lincoln Cent Click image to enlarge.

The 1970-S Large Date Doubled Die Obverse Lincoln Cent has been avidly pursued by collectors since it was first publicized in 1974. For many years, all working dies produced at the United States Mint were hubbed at least two times in order to get a strong impression of the image. When a working hub presses, or hubs, a working die, it causes the face of the working die to become too hard and brittle to allow a complete image with only one pressing. In order to achieve a complete image, the working die, after the initial pressing, is annealed (heated to soften the die), then pressed again.

This 1970-S Lincoln Cent obverse working die rotated counter-clockwise in the hubbing press before the second hubbing, resulting in the clockwise doubling of “IN GOD WE TRUST,” “LIBERTY,” and the date (except the mintmark, which was punched after the die was hubbed). This doubling is referred to as Class I, Rotated Hub Doubling, and is the same doubling found on the previously mentioned 1955 and 1969-S Doubled Die Lincoln Cents. (The 1958 has Class V, Pivoted Hub Doubling, which will be further explained in a future installment.)

This rare Lincoln Cent error-variety has a PCGS population of only 132. To put that in perspective, over 690 million business strikes were produced at the San Francisco Mint in 1970.