1988 Lincoln Cent with reverse of 1989 found

[MintErrors]

I am slowly going through the nine binders and three large monster boxes of double dies and rpm's and I find one coin that the description is written in black ink on a red background. I see that its a 1988, and I immediately kick in the anti-zinc overtone and set it aside on the table. Last night, my son comes down and we are attributing a few other coins. He picks up the pictured 1988 and asks what this is. I tell him its a zinc cent and he reads out loud what the label in red says.

"1988 Lincoln cent with reverse of 1989. Very Scarce".

I have a flashback, and some of the morgan dollar reverses come to mind. We look in our reference, and don't find much. I decided to look the phrase on my favorite search engine. A few pages pop up. I read through the articles and come to find out, that the 1988 and 1988-D both have reverses that were meant to be used for the 1989 year and further. No one can give a concrete answer as to why this happened, but it has happened in other years as well. It could be the dies meant for 1989 reverse dies were mixed in with the 1988 dies by mistake. It could have been near the end of the year and the mint wanted to see how well the dies were going to hold up, and see a few test strikes to see the clarity / quality of the die. It could have been the 1988 reverse dies were all heavily used and the mint had no choice but to use the 1989 dies early.

Whatever the event or reason, the 1988 Lincoln Cent with the Reverse of 1989 is quite scarce. I don't see very many grading companies showing population numbers on this variety. John Wexler does have a few examples of the 1988 Lincoln Cent with the Reverse of 1989 on his website, and there are some proposed prices, but I am not too sure how accurate they are.

It's listed as a "Transitional Reverse Design" or the CONECA number is RDV-006, and John Wexler has it listed as LMRD-006. This die was meant to be used on Lincoln Cents from 1989 to 1992.
The differences are subtle, but there is one area that will identify whether it is a 1988 Lincoln Cent with the Reverse of 1989 or not. Look closely at the Designers initials on the Reverse, to the right of the memorial building. If the upper vertical part of the "G" has a serif that points to the center if the "G" then its probably a 1988 Lincoln Cent with the Reverse of 1989.

I personally don't have a "normal" example of a 1988 Lincoln to compare here. So, Its best to head over to John Wexler's site and have a look at the 1988 Lincoln Cent with the Reverse of 1989

http://www.doubleddie.com/278743.html

Here is a close up of my 1988 Lincoln Cent with the Reverse of 1989 to include the Designer initials, full obverse and full reverse.

http://www.minterrors.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/IMG_2741sm.jpg

http://www.minterrors.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/IMG_2743.jpg

http://www.minterrors.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/IMG_2744.jpg

[Merlin8971]

Hello:
I have three of the reverse of 89. Two look like yours (au) and one the f & g are the same shape but the thickness of the letters are thinner (vf). I also have four 88"s that have no initials. There is also a 1989 with the reverse of 88. The G does not have a serif at the bottom right of the G (the thickness of letters is thinner and the center pointing serif is not present). These seem to be less rare as I found 11 of these reverse of 88 Lincolns.

Both errors are listed in "Strike It Rich With Pocket Change" pg. 95, 96, 98 with good b&w photos.

My conspiracy theory is some dies got mixed up after the 89's were manufactured. some 89's in the 88 bin (a nearly full bin of 88's), some 88's in the 89 bin (maybe only three 88's in almost empty bin in which 89's were placed to fill bin), but then some of each that did not belong were used at Philly and Denver, interestingly there are seemingly no 1989-D's with the reverse of 88.