Not an Error, Still Worth Keeping: The Cool Side of Post-Mint Damage
Severe environmental damage on this Wheat cent wiped out most of the design, a perfect example of heavy PMD found in old change.
Most damaged coins go straight into the reject pile. They are scratched, scraped, bent, corroded, or just beat to hell from a lifetime in pockets and parking lots. Collectors call this PMD, which stands for Post Mint Damage. It covers anything that happened after a coin left the mint.
Every now and then though, you find a coin that looks so strange or so destroyed that it becomes interesting on its own. These coins are never mint errors. They are PMD with a weird story behind them. They won’t have collector value, but they make great teaching examples and they help you build an eye for what real mint errors look like.
Below are a few of the best PMD examples I have seen recently, starting with the wheat cent in the photo above. This thing is completely cooked, but the way the surface failed actually makes it a perfect case study in environmental damage.
Corrosion and Verdigris on Copper Coins
his 1887 Indian Head cent is full swamp thing mode, completely taken over by heavy verdigris and corrosion.
Some post mint damage is so dramatic that the coin barely looks like itself anymore. Heavy corrosion is one of the most common examples, especially on older copper coins like Indian Head cents. When copper sits in damp soil or humid storage for years, the surface reacts and builds layers of crust, flakes, and green deposits.
This green material is called verdigris, and it forms when copper reacts with moisture, oxygen, and acids in the environment. Light verdigris on coins can look like soft green fuzz, but heavy cases can eat straight through the design. The coin above shows deep pitting and thick green buildup across the portrait. None of that happened at the Mint. Every bit of it came from years of environmental damage after the coin entered circulation.
Corrosion like this is always PMD. It never adds value, but it does make great teaching material because it shows how copper breaks down when it is not stored well. If you want to understand what corrosion looks like before it gets this bad, check out your verdigris guide and compare the stages.
Whizzed and polished coins
This 1893 Indian Head cent looks shiny and gold at first glance, but that bright surface and the fine scratch pattern are classic signs of a polished or whizzed coin.
Some PMD shows up as shine. Not good shine. Fake shine. The kind that makes a coin look like it was hit with a wire brush or buffing wheel by someone who thought they were doing it a favor.
A polished coin has been rubbed, wiped, cleaned or buffed to look brighter. A whizzed coin is worse. That is when someone uses a rotary tool to blast the surface, creating a bright but dead look with tiny, uniform scratches. In both cases the original texture of the metal is gone.
A natural coin has depth in the fields. Light moves across it in a smooth, even way. Once someone polishes it, the surface turns flat and flashy. The luster is broken. When a coin has been whizzed, you will often see a grain-like pattern that runs in one direction.
Both types of damage kill collector value. They also confuse a lot of beginners because the coin looks “clean” at first glance. This is where it helps to study real luster and understand what makes it different from artificial shine.
Worn letters pushed into the rim
Worn letters sliding into the rim. It looks dramatic, but this is just a heavily circulated 1968 cent showing classic post-mint wear.
Every roll hunter has seen this. The letters at the top of the coin, usually IN GOD WE TRUST, start sliding into the rim. It looks dramatic enough that beginners think it might be an error. Sellers on eBay definitely act like it is.
It is not. It’s kinda cool though.
This is nothing more than circulation wear. When the highest points of a coin take enough hits over enough years, the tops of the letters start to smear, flatten, or creep into the rim. The rim itself can also smooth out from contact, which makes the lettering look even more distorted.
There is no mint error involved. There is no shifted die. There is no premium. This is simple PMD and a natural result of a long life in circulation.
Post-mint damage doesn’t carry a premium, and none of the coins in this post are rare, valuable, or worth grading. But that doesn’t take away from how interesting they can be. PMD coins are little snapshots of what happens after a coin leaves the mint. They show the real world: circulation, the environment, people dropping them on pavement, machines chewing them up, and decades of life wearing them down.
You don’t have to save every damaged coin, but grabbing the ones that tell a story can make the hobby more fun. They teach your eye, they sharpen your instincts, and they remind you that not every coin needs to be valuable to be worth a closer look.
Geoff runs Genuine Cents, a straight talking coin education project built from hands-on experience and hundreds of hours examining coins. He is an ANA member and writes practical guides for new and returning collectors who want clarity instead of hype. If you want to reach him, message him on Instagram at @GenuineCents.