War nickel mintmarks

[coindood]

Was looking over rolls of 1943S warnicks and I noticed differences in the mintmark style.

The two on the left have a shorter, more squat S, while the two on the right have taller, more slender S's. The upper serif on the shorter S is more pronounced as well. The type on the right is by far more common, at least in the two rolls I've examined.

My older Cherrypickers' Guide (3rd edition) doesn't list these varieties so I wonder if it's been discussed.

Opinions?

[John Reich]

I think that this would be a great field for research--I doubt if very much has been done so far. After all, the 1943/2 overdate wasn't discovered until the early 70's. I would imagine things were very hectic at the mint during the war--with production increasing many, many times over the pre-war years. I think there are a couple possibilities. First, there could be 2 or more different mint mark punches. You would have to measure the size of the mint mark, check the serifs, etc. The other possibility is that the die could have been lapped (ground down to remove imperfections) or over-polished. This would also change the size and shape of the letters. A check to see if other design elements are weak or missing would confirm the die polishing/lapping. Either way, I don't think there would be much of a premium--on the rarer variety due to lack of collector knowledge/interest. That's great, because if you're interested and there are a lot of varieties you could put a very interesting collection together with out paying premium prices!