A Mint Error or Not?
I bought this Romanian coin as a Mint Error. It had all the ear-marks of a Partial Brockage. (A portion of one side bears the incuse image of another coin). Obviously, the coin has also been defaced. My assumption was that the heavy lines were the result of the Mint destruction of a mis-struck coin.
Another Mint-cancelled Romanian coin came into my possession. This one had the same kind of disfiguring lines but was normal otherwise. I thought "Humm. I guess they used their coin-crushing rollers to deface the withdrawn coins (see below *), just like they did on mis-struck rejects."
My assumptions were really tested when yet another Mint-cancelled Romanian coin came along. It, like the first, had a partial incuse image. (This one had been put through the crushing rollers twice, so I suppose one could consider it a type of destruction error).
My first reaction was that it was odd that I had found two Partial Brockages. No full Brockages, no Off-Centers, no Clips, etc.
Then it made sense. These are not error coins that the Mint "caught". The Partial Brockage effect came about when the recalled nickel pieces were being defaced. Simulated Partial Brockages were produced on those coins which lay partly over another coin in the crushing machine. I had it backwards. These are not errors made at the time the coins were being made, but oddities made as the coins were being destroyed!
* Romanian 50 and 100 Lei pieces were made of Nickel from 1936 to 1938. As World War II loomed, Romania melted over 77% of the total production to retrieve this vital war material.