Lincoln Cent Error Coin Guide 2026: The Most Accurate and Credible Error Coin Guide Available

By Stan McDonald

The only guide on Amazon published for 16 years.

This error coin guide empowers experienced collectors to buy and sell with confidence, featuring values for over 5,400 listings and thousands of detailed entries. It covers 55 known error types, illustrated with photos from my personal collection. This is the only guide that provides an email for contact. Why? Because I am an authentic numismatist in the USA.

Drawing on 60 years of coin collecting expertise, contributions to coin magazines, affiliations with numismatic organizations, ANA involvement, and research from PCGS, NGC, the US Mint, and the US Treasury, this guide is a comprehensive resource. Contact: errorcoinexpert@aol.com.

First published 16 years ago with 1,000 listings, it now includes over 5,400, enriched by data from auctions attended across Florida, making it the only guide based on realized auction values.

Main book contributions:
All known error coin definitions with photographs
Realized coin auction results
Double die and RPM photos
Eight types of doubled dies
Glossary

Major Error Categories:
Die errors: Errors created from broken dies, cracked collars, hub errors, misaligned dies, doubled die errors, and repunched mintmarks.
Planchet Errors: Blanks used in the minting process with cracks, clips, defects, lamination, occluded gas, unplated, the wrong metal, and the wrong planchet.
Striking errors: Errors created in the minting process, such as bonded pairs, broadstrikes, brockage, chain strikes, counter brockage, die cap, double denomination, flipover, foldover, indent, mated pairs, off center, strike through, and others.

Error Coin Grading
Grading coins is not within the scope of this book. The only grading sources for mint state coins that are meaningful are the grading services. The best source for grading coins with photos is the PCGS website: https: //www.pcgs.com/photograde.

Error coin collecting has been increasing in popularity since the grading services expanded their authentication and grading of error coins. In 1999, a PCGS publication said: "In the past, the grading and authentication of mint errors have been restricted to die varieties, such as a 1955 doubled die cent or the 1937-D 3-Legged Buffalo nickel," said Richard Montgomery, PCGS President. This new program will feature grading and authentication of mint errors created by mistakes made during the mint striking process. This new program will enable PCGS to certify some of the most spectacular striking errors in all of U.S. numismatics."

Error Coin Attributions
Not all coin holders by PCGS, NGC, and ANACS do not have an attribution number and simply record the coin error as a doubled die or RPM error. In the 1960s, two numismatists, J.T. Stanton and Bill Fiaz, collected and cataloged information about RPM and DDO coins. The catalog they created uses their initials (FS) with a numbering system. The Fiaz-Stanton system is the most regarded, and error coins with the FS attribution numbers command the most value.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0FCM1KQJZ
• ISBN13: 9798287310882
• Release Date: June 2025
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 194 Pages
• Weight: 0.59 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"