!946s penny striked weak.

[mjd]

Hi all. It seems the 1946s pennies were weakly struck on the 46, i have this one that seems very weak and the 4 looks messed up to me. Hope the pics are good enough. Thanks for all replys. Mike

[diamond]

Most likely a filled die. Gunk partly clogging the recesses in the die face corresponding to the affected numbers.

[wavysteps]

For some reason when the last two digits were engraved into the master die of the 1946 Lincoln cent, the 4 and 6 were not engraved deep enough, especially the 4. With the constant use of the master die to make the working hubs the last two digits became less defined on the working hubs. This weakness in the last two digits was transfered on to the working dies.

It seems that when the mint hand punched the mint marks into the working dies the S mint marks were done to the last part of the working dies made. While some think differently, I do believe that some of the working dies from San Francisco in 1946 were re-engraved to strengthen the 4 digit.

Now, if any gunk clogged the die in that area, the 4 and 6 almost seamed to disappear. This also happened in 1943 with the 4 digit in the Lincoln cent coming and going because of mint gunk. Some coins have a very weak 4, some do not have the 4 digit at all. This also happened with three out of the four dies in the 1922 Lincoln cent with either the missing or weak D. The last die, die #2 had the D abraded off.

BJ Neff

[diamond]

Thanks for the lesson, BJ. Do you have any clue why it's almost always the 4 on 1943 cents that gets clogged? That's always bugged me.

[mjd]

Very intresting Thanks guys.

[wavysteps]

Mike - In that incident I do not have a clue. I do have examples of the strong down to the no 4 in the 1943 cent, but never checked to see if more than one working die was involved. That might be a nice little project. Also, Bob Piazza may know the answer to this one.

BJ