1922 No D Strong Reverse

The 1922 "No D" or "Plain" Lincoln cent is one of the most famous error coins in American numismatics. No cents were produced at Philadelphia in 1922. All 1922 Lincoln cents were struck at Denver, which means every genuine 1922 cent should bear a D mintmark. A small number do not. Denver was under extreme pressure to produce cents that year, and the production pace led to sloppiness. An employee obtained a worn obverse die and filed it down to improve its appearance. The filing removed too much metal, grinding away the D mintmark along with the surface imperfections. The result was a die that produced cents with no visible mintmark.

The "Strong Reverse" designation identifies the most desirable version of the no-D variety. On these coins, the reverse is sharply struck with full detail, while the obverse shows a distinctly weak D area with no trace of the mintmark. Other examples (sometimes called "Weak Reverse" or "Die Pair 2/Die Pair 3") show varying degrees of weakness across both sides, and the absence of the D is less clearly a die-fill issue versus simple weakness. The Strong Reverse version commands the strongest premium because the contrast between the weak D area and the sharp reverse confirms that the mintmark's absence is specific to the D, not general die weakness.

The 1922 No D is one of the most counterfeited Lincoln cents. The most common method is simply removing the D mintmark from a standard 1922-D cent by scraping or polishing the field around the mintmark smooth. Detecting this requires examining the surface texture in the mintmark area for evidence of tooling, which appears as an unnaturally smooth or flat area compared to the surrounding field. Third-party certification is essential. The difference between a genuine 1922 No D and a tooled 1922-D is the difference between a valuable coin and a damaged common one.