1969-S Doubled Die Lincoln Cent

What it is

One of the rarest and most valuable Lincoln Memorial cents. The doubling is as dramatic as the 1955, but the coin is far scarcer. When the first examples appeared, the Secret Service seized some, believing they were counterfeits.

How to identify it

1. Strong doubling on LIBERTY, IN GOD WE TRUST and the date.
2. The S mint mark below the date is single, not doubled.
3. The coin should weigh about 3.1 g; it is 95% copper.

A 5x to 10x loupe and good, angled light make the details much easier to see. For anything that looks genuine, a digital scale and a certified comparison coin help.

What gets mistaken for it

Many fakes were made by doubling the design on a regular 1969-S. Machine doubling is also common in this year. Only buy this coin certified by a major grading service.

The regular 1969-S coin

The variety appears on the 1969-S Lincoln Memorial Cent, which had a total mintage of 544,375,000. That figure counts the whole issue, so it does not tell you how many coins show the variety.

How the 1969-S doubled die happened

All working dies for the branch mints were made at Philadelphia and shipped to the facility that would use them. In 1969 the San Francisco facility, officially the San Francisco Assay Office at the time, had only recently gone back to striking cents for circulation after a break that ended in 1968. One of its obverse dies had received a misaligned impression from the hub, doubling LIBERTY, the motto and the date.

The S mint mark was punched into each working die by hand after the die had been hubbed. That is why the mint mark on a genuine coin is single even though the rest of the obverse is doubled. The faulty die struck an unknown number of coins, which left San Francisco mixed with ordinary 1969-S cents.

The counterfeit scare around the 1969-S

At about the same time the genuine coins were found, counterfeit doubled 1969-S cents were also being made. The Secret Service investigated and genuine coins were taken along with fakes. Only after the coins were examined by experts was it accepted that a real doubled die had been struck at San Francisco.

That history is the reason the coin is handled with so much caution. Fakes from that period survive and some are good enough to fool a collector who has never handled a genuine example.

Checking a 1969-S cent step by step

Use a 10x loupe and a desk lamp angled low across the coin. Begin with LIBERTY: on the genuine coin each letter has a full, rounded second image. Then check IN GOD WE TRUST and the date. The doubling should be strong across all of them because it comes from one die.

Next, look at the S. It should be a single, crisp mint mark of the style used that year, sitting cleanly below the date. A smeared or doubled S on a coin with doubled lettering points to machine doubling or a counterfeit rather than the variety.

Finally, weigh the coin on a scale that reads to 0.01 grams. A 1969 cent of 95% copper and 5% zinc weighs about 3.11 grams. Anything well outside that needs a much closer look.

Look-alikes and fakes

Three things are commonly mistaken for the 1969-S doubled die. The first is machine doubling, which is very common on 1969-S cents and produces flat shelves on one side of the letters. The second is die deterioration doubling, where a worn die leaves a thin, ghostly outline around letters, usually those close to the rim. The third is outright counterfeits, including struck copies with tool marks in the fields or a rim that looks too sharp or too soft.

A simple rule helps: if the doubling is weak, uneven or visible on only a few letters, the coin is not the famous variety. The genuine coin is unmistakable once you have seen certified images.

Grades and surfaces collectors prefer

Known 1969-S doubled dies range from circulated coins to a small number of Mint State pieces. Fully red Uncirculated examples are very rare. Collectors pay close attention to color and surface quality, looking for original red or red brown surfaces with no cleaning, corrosion or spots. Because the coin is so rare, a well-preserved circulated piece is still a major find.

Authentication and attribution

The variety is listed as FS-101 for 1969-S in the Fivaz-Stanton system and both PCGS and NGC attribute it. Given its history, never buy an uncertified example or one in a holder from a little-known grading company. When submitting a coin you found, request variety attribution so the doubled die is named on the label.

Related San Francisco cents

San Francisco produced several other well-known cent varieties around the same time. The 1970-S comes in Small Date and Large Date versions and there is a 1970-S Small Date doubled die obverse. Proof cents of 1971-S include a doubled die obverse as well. Collectors who own the 1969-S often build a set of these early San Francisco varieties together.

Frequently asked questions