What's up with the odd happenings on the Rev of this 1983 Mem. Cent? Some type of Planchet Error?

[KarenHolcomb]

Question #2 for today...you'll notice the raised line running NE to SW from the A in AMERICA to the bottom left of the Memorial Bldg. Is that just part of an Alloy Clash or Sub-surface Corrosion(I know y'all are digging my increased coin verbage). or is it something else?  Are those black spots on the Obv. the beginnings of the Zinc Rot? And then there's that ugly Mint Mark. Is that Zinc rot or Split Plating? If all of these are the zinc issue will this type of flip prevent further rot, or will it just continue until it looks like bullet ridden tank? Thanks again for your input and advice. Idk what I'd do without you all.

[JKK]

Hard to imagine a clash that could produce that long line. When it's that straight I have to think a deep nasty scratch in the die, caused I'm not sure how. That would explain why it is most prominent on the low points and softens up or vanishes on the high points (which in the die are the deepest holes).

[KarenHolcomb]

Well, thats better than my thinking it was some subsurface corrosion. I do have several with the same line so I think you're correct.

[Mohawk]

16 hours ago, JKK said:

Hard to imagine a clash that could produce that long line. When it's that straight I have to think a deep nasty scratch in the die, caused I'm not sure how. That would explain why it is most prominent on the low points and softens up or vanishes on the high points (which in the die are the deepest holes).

Agreed.  I'm wondering if that's the case too.  The other thing I can think of is that you may have a cent with the mother of all plating blisters on it.  The US Mint had a definite learning curve with the copper-plated zinc cents, and plating blisters are not all that uncommon on cents from the 1980's.  However, if what you have is indeed a plating blister, it's massive.  I've never seen one that big, but it could definitely happen, especially right at the beginning of the zinc cent era in 1982-83.

[KarenHolcomb]

And a massive blister would be like the zinc rot, right? Which brings me to another question I was going to come ask...there's no way to stop zinc rot, is there? So if I do have a bunch with it, regardless of what errors the coin may have, I should just spend them? And the green stuff? Does it spread to other coins if stored together in the same tube?

One the other, better, hand-if it is a giant deep Die Scratch is that an error?

[Conder101]

Reverse is linear plating blister, obvs is the start of zinc rot where breaks in the plating have exposed the zinc and it has begun to corrode.

[JKK]

Zinc is very difficult to conserve. When you have copper-plated zinc, the drag is that whatever you use on the coin has to be functional with both metals, as it is practically impossible to apply a treatment (if there were a good one) to just one of the metals. I have had limited success with solid zinc coins and soaking off some of the damage, but in those cases I was working with coins so heavily affected that nothing I could do to them could worsen their situations.

I don't collect modern Lincs, but if I did, I would immediately give up on any piece that wasn't a tremendous rarity. Of course, if a collector finds it interesting in spite of the corrosion or whatever flaws, s/he should collect it and feel just fine about that--long as there is no expectation that it will carry significant market value. It usually will not.

[KarenHolcomb]

9 hours ago, Conder101 said:

Reverse is linear plating blister, obvs is the start of zinc rot where breaks in the plating have exposed the zinc and it has begun to corrode.

So then, after reading about this linear plating blister for the 100th time in the Error-Ref, even having an actual coin in front of me....essentially it's all zinc rot?

[Thomas Kurr]

s under d?

[KarenHolcomb]

22 hours ago, Thomas Kurr said:

s under d?

Thatbis precisely what I was hoping to hear Thomas, although I guess I kinda knew there wasn't much chance of that happening. Wishful thinking I guess. 

[KarenHolcomb]

Ha! Too cool. I was just googling Alloy Clash and my own question was part of my results!