This time I have something that would have once been labelled in the error community as sintered, no not sinister despite it being a highly appropriate movie for the season, planchet it is now classified as annealed.� Yes it does look like another FIEND I presented earlier this season but the reverse does not get its copper tone, not the tanning oil, due to missing a layer of cladding but due to a chemical process.� This little guy gets his copper sheen in the annealing process where all the little planchets go to get cooked, you know Daunte's inferno, as part of the preparation process prior to striking.� Now you probably want to know how, well originally when I had it explained to me the process was known as sintered, it was copper dust held somehow is suspension then adhered to the copper nickel planchet, which can even happen to a nickel which is strangely named being mostly copper.� To explained how this occurred on a nickel planchet it was thought that either it proceeded a batch of cent planchets or were stuck with them.� The new theory and term Improperly Annealed Planchet states that the planchet possibly stayed longer than it should have in the furnace allowing the copper atoms migrate to the surface, this theory seems to make it appearance on a nickel planchet a lot easier don't you think?� It would seem this could move from theory to fact using weight, but in both cases we are probably talking the difference that would be undetectable by any scale the average numismatist would have access to.� It would be along the lines of weighing the amount of material lost on a coins surface due to toning, think I am crazy read Coin Chemistry as the author describes how to calculate that very thing.

I decided today to let my Washington team take a break to allow you the chance to gaze upon a FIEND that will have you seeing double.� Yes this does not just have one 1968, but two and likewise it has double D’s indicating its branch mint origin.� This little fellow somehow after receiving the first strike shifted to the right in addition to turning a little more than ninety degrees all while another planchet slipped into the coining chamber below it. Then, WHAM!� The dies came down leaving a clear impression for the year of issue and the mint it was issued from along with some whiskers and clothing in place of the base of the bust as the designer had intended.� Now due to a planchet being in the chamber below the obverse parts of the motto E PLURBUS UNUM and all of STATES are distorted on my FIEND.� It reminiscent of the images I could create with silly putty, the latest Sunday Funnies, and a little free time.� All of that said I would like to think somewhere out there, beneath the pale moonlight, is a dateless Lincoln cent with a partial brockage STATES.� Granted having no date this oddity, as I imagine it, would never show up in my searches. Though who knows this imagined piece may have also shifted to the right turning a little more than ninety degrees to be hammered once again this time being date stamped to be something truly exceptional. This being said it would have not been a double date despite being double struck.� Of course that takes more supposition than I can infer from the evidence my little doubled dated Lincoln can offer us.

Today I invite you to gaze upon a curiosity I mentioned while describing my last FREAK.� Up until the truncated bust of Washington arrived this member of my cast held the coveted title of being my one and only example of an off center 1968 quarter.� Still I think this ODDITY was more a product of a planchet defect than simply a blank not arriving in the coining chamber as its creator had intended.� It would seem to me if you could wind the clock back before the die came crashing down on the DEFECTIVE planchet I suspect it would have never been able to fall into the coining chamber.� It just seems that the planchet when cut from the edge of strip of coining metal it had enough excess to exceed the diameter of the slot it was intended.� Then again I could be all wrong and its IRREGULATIY is just due to how a straight clip allowed the metal to flow without being confined by the coining collar as designed.� A possible strong point in support of this latter argument is the fact the piece only weighs 4.7 grams in lieu of the 5.67 grams noted in the redbook for a standard, yes I almost wrote normal but now normal has a negative connotation go figure, copper nickel issue of this year.� So doing a quick check on the math based upon the 20% clip noted on its plastic captor the weight should be 4.536 grams, which is not that far off from its actual weight.� So I may be wrong about how my little FIEND was created or maybe I am right.� Maybe someday someone can run a computer simulation or better yet create a time machine so I may one day know for sure how my possession came to be. That said it is the mystery that makes this oddly shaped menagerie of pieces so delightfully interesting.

Well the last week of October is finally here and so it the final FREAK for this year.

I know not my usual October blog, but thought I would share the quarter that inspired the article I wrote that appears in the November Numismatist.� I know not the beauty that Caleb found to use in the graphics, but it is the one I bought at Reliable Coins.� I guess too I need to update my bio as in addition to my interest in error coins of 1968 and 681 military payment certificates I have been working on completing a set of the classic commemorative coins.� Which this piece and the Lafayette dollar are outliers in the set if you exclude the gold pieces.� One of my favorite things about numismatics is the rabbit holes you can find while collecting.� Sometimes they are just imagined like trying to guess how far a particular piece has traveled to arrive in your collection both in time and distance.� This one though was a trip through history trying to discover if what I had read was fact and be reminded of somethings that I had once forgotten.� There was a second one page article I developed for the TNA too during my trip down the Isabella rabbit hole.� I have included a link below to the TNA site and you will find my article on page 17 of the December 2020 issue.http://www.tna.org/archive_news.htmEnjoyp.s.� I want to credit Caleb the editor for the Numismatist first for providing another resource for my article and putting it together pulling additional graphics that I did not have.