ODD "COIN JAR" PENNY HAS ME DUMBFOUNDED... THOUGHTS?

[coin finder momma]

odd 1997D penny was found in one of my coin jars. thicker and seems heavier than a normal penny. sides are thick making center look inlaid. reverse side building columns appear ridged and squared. copper appears to be chipping and warn. my son just sized with a dime and is the same size in circumference.





this penny has be completely dumbfounded and would love some insight/thoughts on this little bugger

 

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[BeenThere DugThat]

Very odd Lincoln, good eye. I check all my change too.

 

[Peyton Manning]

just looks to somehow have had the edges rolled over

 

[DocBeav]

someone may have been beating on the edges to practice making a coin ring

 

[can_slaw]

People used to start coin rings this way.

 

[against the wind]

Perhaps it was left in a pocket when the pants went in the laundry. Then it shrunk??

 

[TwistedT]

as some others have said - may be someone starting to make a ring. you roll and hit the edges of the coin to flatten them.
or - it may be a dryer coin, a coin stuck in a dryer for a long time.

I am going with the ring theory

 

[Professor of Engineering]

Cool cent, thank you for sharing!

 

[Dieselpro]

I have made double sided coins. It looks like a coin that I would cup out on one side and press another thin head inside the cup. You notice on the extreme sides where the coin has been cut down. Your single coin has been cut down and pressed into a ring of copper I guess. Even looks like epoxy on the edges.

I could make them so perfect the thin side would just snap in with no cement. Making a perfect coin requires two perfect coins to start out with. Seems the edges are not so near the same thickness and you can loose bits of letters on the edge.

Maybe this is a coin you can stand on edge for fun jokes or something.

 

[l.cutler]

Definitely just damaged, these are usually called dryer coins, but I would imagine there are other ways they could end up like this.

 

[DetectorMoe]

Sometimes inmates people in jail does this type of stuff, they make coins into rings out of boredom. Maybe that penny didn't get finish. Cool find.

 

[Squirrel322]

Maybe this is a coin you can stand on edge for fun jokes or something.

I think it something along these lines. A fake coin for a magic trick. The details are lacking, it looks like a poor copy.

 

[Bonzododa71]

Hi CFM.
I had a silver 10 cent that I retrieved from the pump on a washing machine years ago that had its edges rolled over like yours the pump was "Toast" and I was replacing it when I found it probably got like that after being tumbled for some years.
......HH....Bonz

 

[Dieselpro]

The coin is not tumbled. You can clearly see the inner edges have been cut. Notice how the edge of the letters have been chopped off? The outer edge of a good coin was cut off and that cut coin was inserted into a copper ring. As suggested it's really a poor modification to serve some type of magic trick or something along those lines. I thought maybe the rim was steel so a magnet would pick it up. Have you tried a magnet?

 

[coin finder momma]

It never occurred to me to do that.

Just tried it. Not magnetic. Not even the slightest drag.

 

[coin finder momma]

The edges where copper meets outside ring appear to have been soldered... Small but noticeable.

 

[coinman123]

I am pretty sure that it is a dryer coin. Here is an image of a similar dryer coin from the internet. Almost every zinc cent that was in a dryer for a very long time shows the coin's underlying zinc on the edges, because after time in the dryer, the thin copper plating was heavily worn down and moved around.



Just search zinc dryer coin on Google Images to see more examples similar to the OP's.
https://www.google.com/search?q=dry...UICygC&biw=1260&bih=645#imgrc=Fn_Z6--ey9nq0M:

 

[l.cutler]

It is definitely a dryer coin, seen lots of them!

 

[Dieselpro]

After looking at some of the dryer coins on Google I guess that is what it is. The coin surface is just to degraded to be anything else. The reduced OD should be the tip off.

 

[ecmjamsit]

Bang on a coin with a spoon, will create that effect.