Owner Comments:
Lyman Allen #2.10 (KM #163) - Mintage: 3,001,000
The 1912S is a common coin, but uncirculated examples are difficult to obtain. Fully RD and RB examples are even more rare.
This particular coin is very well struck and typical of copper coins struck at the San Francisco mint between 1908 and 1924. Even though much red remains, it is a pale, brassy color with light brown streaks running diagonally across both sides of the coin. This is due to impurities in the alloy or concentrations of pure copper that did not mix completely with the tin and zinc. David Lange sums it up very well in his USA Coin Album entry from July 1, 2003 entitled "San Francisco Mint Cents 1908-24": "When these less-than-perfect ingots were rolled into strip, from which blanks would later be punched, the concentrations were flattened and stretched into the patterns seen on the finished coins. Invisible when first struck, these flaws appeared only after the coin was exposed to atmospheric agents that caused the copper concentrations to tone more quickly than the properly mixed portions of the planchet."
Varieties: None cataloged for this date
Date acquired: 4/10/2010 (already graded by PCGS)
Rev. 11/30/2012