1956 D Penny - High Mint Mark

[Machtron]

20220531_150814.jpg Hi - I've looked at many other pictures of 1956 D pennies and none of them show a miny mark as close to the date as this coin has. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? 20220531_150745.jpg

[MintErrors]

Back in the day when they used to add mintmarks to the working dies, the mint workers were allowed to place the mint mark anywhere below the date, within the field (flat) area. Most placed them so they looked decent.

The mintmark placement isn't a big deal until it's touching the date significantly.


I have a handful or two of these, as well as have seen many others.

I simply call them "danger close", but they do not have a high interest amongst collectors, nor are they worth much over face value.

[Machtron]

That's really interesting information - thanks for taking the time to share it.

[mustbebob]

There are a couple in 1956 that had the mint mark just about touching the date. One of them is the very desirable RPM-008 where there is a totally separate mintmark in the field below the high mint mark. I can't tell by looking at this photo, but you may want to check carefully at RPM-008 and RPM-015 to see if this might be one of them.

[Machtron]

Please excuse my ignorance - RPM means Re-punched Mint Mark but what do the numerals following indicate?

[mustbebob]

The numerals are merely a running count of how many repunched mintmarks have been found for this date/mint. In the case I was mentioning, RPM-008 would mean this is the 8th repunched mintmark cataloged on the 1956D cent. Please be aware that in some cases, the 8th RPM catalogued might be different between each attribution service like Variety Vista, Coppercoins.com, and doubleddies.com. Some of these sites will try to cross reference the numbers, but that is a courtesy rather than a requirement.
Some years, like 1960D have over 200 cataloged varieties.

[Machtron]

Thanks for that useful and interesting information. I looked at the Top 100 RPM's linked from this sites home page and found RPM-008 but I didn't see RPM-015 listed. I'll keep looking. I looked at RPM-016 1956DRPM016b.jpg for a bit and just can't see why it's a RPM, I'm missing something. The others were fairly obvious but RPM-018 has me scratching my head. Unless the small ridge at the foot of that number is considered a D but that seems like a stretch from what I can see.

[Machtron]

Sorry, I meant RPM-016 rather than RPM-018.

[Machtron]

Here are a couple of better images of the mint mark. Unfortunately I'm not seeing signs of a RPM. Fun looking however. 1956DHMM.jpg Mon Jun 06 08-59-51.jpg

[MintErrors]

Have a look here:

http://varietyvista.com/02a%20LC%20RPMs%20Vol%201/RPMs%201956D.htm

[MintErrors]

Ok, now that I see the coin, sure it is pretty close, but, that is about all I can say about it.

This 1954-S is closer, but again, it does not command any premium just because it is close...

1954-S Danger Close-x4.jpg 1954-S Danger Close-x8.jpg

[Machtron]

Thanks for taking the time to review it and for passing along your knowledge. I'll keep searching for something better!