1974 was a year of experimentation that many novice collectors never learned about until many years later. Copper was getting more expensive, so the Mint decided to test new materials for making cents. The worked with aluminum, but ultimately decided not to change the composition of the cent.

One thing that did change, however, was a hub design change that wasn't even known until years later. This hub design change produced two different date sizes for all three mints for 1974, making six different possible business strike issues. This is one of those issues. You need one of these for a GEM Memorial set, and this one comes at a very reasonable price for a tough coin!

This item is a general stock item, meaning we stock a quantity of these items that all have very similar appearance. For that reason, the images you see of this item are representative of the quality of coin you will receive, but is NOT the actual coin you will receive when ordering this item.

As a seller I believe in full disclosure by way of a detailed description and large, clear photographs when warranted, but many less expensive and bulk items make more sense to carry with 'sample' photographs rather than photographing each individual lot sold. For that reason, if the description above specifies that a stock image is used, be aware that the items you will receive are in like kind to the images provided, but WILL NOT be the exact same items.

Charles D. Daughtrey is the founder and owner of coppercoins and has been a specialist in the Lincoln cent for more than 40 years. He is the author and developer of the attribution system now used across the Lincoln cent die variety market commonly known as the "coppercoins die attribution system" for die varieties such as doubled dies and repunched mintmarks. He is the author of, "Looking Through Lincoln Cents, a Chronology of a Series," and is a member of the Numismatic Literary Guild, the American Numismatic Association, Florida United Numismatists, and the Central States Numismatic Society as well as other local and national numismatic clubs.