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Originally Posted by Paddy54  The feel of this coin is butttery smooth...funny how most of the coin is wore off but the top of the cross is still very clear. |
It's not that the design is worn off the coin, it was never there to begin with. These rough cobs like this were cut from very rough cast ignots of refined silver. The pieces were sliced off in what the mint master thought would be the correct approximate weight. Then the piece would be weighed, and if over-weight smaller pieces would be cut off it a piece at a time until the correct weight was achieved. Only then was the coin struck.
But because the shape of the cob planchet was so irregular with many different angles, only small portions of the design were ever imparted to the planchets by the dies.
