Replaced Cent Easements

Altered or Damaged Pieces

The following guide is designed to help new and old encased cent collectors be more aware of the items they are considering purchasing over the internet.  Descriptions and photos will be provided to help aide in the identification of un-authentic, altered, suspicious or damaged pieces.

When we purchase new additions for our collections, weather it be coins or any other item you name it, we usually want them to be in the best condition.  Most would stay away from anything that was altered, damaged or just plain suspicious.  In the realm of E-bay it's not always clear what you will get.  Unfortunately in most cases you can't closely and personally inspect the items you are considering to purchase.  Some sellers go as far as to provide poor pictures, unorigional photos and incomplete descriptions. 

I am sure that most avid e-bayers have had atleast one bad experience where upon reciept of the item purchased, you found something that was less than satisfactory.  This article main focus is to help educate and inform Encased Cent collectors, often called "Lucky Pennies".  Please view the photos and read the descriptions of each below. 

By the way each photo you will see is of an Encased Cent that was at onetime listed for bidding on this very site (Ebay).

Condition Matching Of the Coin And Encasement

Take a look at this photo and what do you see?  This may seem like a trivia question, but the purpose here is for you to learn.  

At a glance this looks like a normal encasement with an Indian Head Cent.  This variety tends to be more desirable then the more common Lincoln Cent pieces.  This is also why you need to be more careful with these pieces.  Take another look.  The aluminum collar looks almost flawless, mirror finish, you can see a shadow of the photographer in the reflection on the finish.  You would assume that someone took real good care of this, or atleast put it away for along time where it was rarely handled.  Now look at the Cent its self.  After inspecting the encasement does it look abit odd.  Well the date of the piece is correct (how do we know? we will discuss that later in this guide), but the condition of the cent dosn't seem to be consistent with the collar it's incased in.  Given the condition of the collar you should expect that the cent be Mint State Full Red Uncirculated, or atleast in Near Mint State Uncirculated.  If my suspicions are correct, a RED flag would go up, someone at some time possibly removed the cent which would have been worth a substantial amount and replaced it with a lower grade example. 

Hammer, Punch, File, or Other Suspicious Man Made Markings

Here is a good, more obvious example of an encasement with a replaced cent.  Though the date of the cent may or may not be correct you can see that some sort of punch was used to reform the aluminum to hold the cent inplace.  Even though the condition of the coin and the encasement may be similar, there are other obvious marks, this tells me that a more circulated cent was used.  Compare a newer penny and an more circulated older cent from your pocket.  It may not be visibly apparent, but stack them together and the older cent will be slightly smaller due to wear.  Probably why a punch was used to make this cent stay put.

Other signs to look for would be hammer marks, or file markings.  When the encasement is made the cent is placed in the center of a hot aluminum collar.  Then a press comes down with lots of pressure and the designs and advertisement is pressed into the aluminum forming what you see.   The cent also feels this pressure, and most of the time the cents shape, and size can become altered.  Often you may find a piece with a somewhat bent penny in it, this is normal.  But because of this, after a cent is punched out of the collar a different penny can be difficult to fit back into the hole.  Thus a file, or more commonly, a hammer is used.

Also watch for anything that looks like glue on a coin or holder, its probably the substance used to hold the cent in the hole.

Gaps Spaces, Does the coin Fit?

A more seasoned collector would notice right away that a 1906 cent is the incorrect date for this piece, or that the style of this piece just dosn't fit the norm of what you would see for and Encased Indian Head cent, But we will get more into that later. 

Pretend that is a Lincoln cent in the piece photo'd above.  Notice that the hole that the cent is fit into dosn't seem to be round. There are some irregularities, and some small gaps between the collar and the cent.  These are the tall tell signs that this piece has been altered with a replaced cent.

Wrong Date

You can probably believe that almost any piece with a cent dated before 1901 is not genuine.  The first Encased Cents are reported to have appeared appeared in 1901.  Most commonly the 1901 PAN-AMERICAN EXPOSITION in Buffalo, New York were some of the first pieces.  But how would you know what date the cent is supposed to be.  In fact there have been many Encased pieces that have use 2 different dated cents, or in some cases Lincoln cents were used and the same designed also used a Canadian cent. 

I am not trying to advertise, but there is an online club just for Encased Cent Collectors, where the members of the club have compiled many list by state and topic of origional encased pieces.  Comparing the considered encased cent with ones on the check list on the clubs website is one way.  If you have more patients, occasionally I have seen books that individuals have published about the encased pieces from thier state.  But you don't see those very often.  More information and the web address of the Club mentioned can be found when you visit my ME page on EBAY.

Suspicious Looking Pieces

Looking closely at this picture, there are a few things suspicious.  I first notice the Indian Head Cent.  The style of writing on this piece is not consistent with pieces you normal see with this penny in them.  I second notice that the piece seems to be bent, by the way the light shines on it. Possibly was bent trying to re-insert a different cent.  It also looks as though the actual cent it's self has some markings around the bottom and left that appear to be dents or dings.  An origional encased cent most oftenly would have been uncirculated at time of manufacture.  My guess is that they got there when it cent was hammered into place.

Here are a few date specific examples you can use as a reference.  These pieces, no mater what shape or style, should only have cents in them as dated as follows.

• Pan-American Exposition -  Buffalo N.Y. 1901
• St. Louis World's Fair 1904
• Louis & Clark Exposition 1905
• Jamestown Exposition 1907
• A.Y.P. Exposition 1909 (Indian Head)
• Chicago World's Fair - Century Of Progress 1933
• V-J Day V-E Day "VICTORY" 1945
• Chevrolet most are 1948 some may be 1947

Tips & Suggestions

If the sellers photo ad description provided dosn't look right or you just cannot tell.  Ask the seller questions.  Sometimes you can request a larger photo or scan to be e-mailed to you.  If something appears wrong don't automaticly assume the seller is trying to pull a fast one on ya.  Not all sellers may be aware that they are selling an un origional piece.  But if your request for more information goes unanswered, it's probably a sign not to buy.  As with purchasing any collectables over the internet, educating yourself first, could save you from disappointment and save you money.

More photos and Updates to be added at a later Date.  Thank you for looking. 

Besure to check out my Guides & Reviews on other Coin Collecting related topics.