DoublEd dies for beginners

bhp3rd · 02-16-2009, 11:34 AM

I know there are other posts, threads on learning doublED dies but as many questions as we get on here and as much confusion as there is each day on eBay I feel a frank, not to technical thread is in order.
With this thread I will not go into the die making process in depth because I believe it is too much information for the beginner -

1. A doublED die is just that, a doublED, (not double) die. It is a die that has been hubbed or distorted in a manner during hubbing that results in devices, numbering, lettering or images on portions of that die that have been doublED, tripled, etc. - at this point a doublED die is independent of any coins it may strike. It is a doublED die first, then the coins it may strike are called doublED die coins from that die.

2. A doublED die is not a double strike, ejection strike, machine doubling, mechanically doubled or shift struck coin. Doubling on any coin "does not a doublED die make"!

3. The majority of DoublED dies are closer than most people can even see that are new to the hobby. In other words it take some experience to even be able to discern most true doubled dies from coins struck from a normal die.

4. DoublED die have many characteristics that are common to most forms of true doublED dies. The doubling will have splits in the ends or serifs of letters and or numbers. The doubled images will be close to but slightly ajar of the primary devise. Think juxtapositioned of, slightly on top of but ajar from the underlying images. True doublED dies are generally thick extra design images with both appearing as if they were fully struck up. Also doublED dies will show doubling in a clockwise or counterclockwise or north and south direction as you look across the coins surface.

5. Except in rare cases true doublED dies will occur only on the obverse or reverse of the coin. There are doubled dies existing in both coins meant for circulation and proofs and in all denominations of US coins.

6. The largest amount of known doublED dies have been from about 1930 thru 1983 in US coins.

7. A coin with both a date and mint mark doubled in the same amount or direction prior to about 1990 is almost always a mechanically doubled coin - doublED dies occur during hubbing long before the mint mark was added.

8. An already rare coin also with a doublED die will generally not enhance it's value or in other words the "higher numismatic value" a coin has to begin with the less any die variety will add additional value to it. (think 1914-D Lincoln cent with an RPM (re-punched mintmark) - the coin is already valuable to begin with the enhancement of the RPM is next to nothing - people who want that coin want the 14-D regardless of the varieity.

9. All of the above is not set in stone and there are exceptions to every rule and no ones knows everything - recently a looked at a 1963 guild to error / variety coins - the author stated many thing that has since been found to be not only untrue but completely in error.

10. AND PERHAPS the most important of all - this area of numismatics is very rewarding but not for everyone. In fact I have met persons who cannot see doubled dies or only the strongest ones. I am not sure why this is but a suspect some kind of spacial difficulty or interpretation of images but several have show this prepencity. Additionally we search a lot of coins - I search most weeks up to 7500 Lincolns. That equates to about 15 hours or more and many weeks I find nothing. On the flip side I have bought proof sets for $11 and sold the Lincoln's for $2000. I have found dozens of new varieties for the Wexler files and found at least $20,000 to $35,000 worth of die varieties in the past 12 years.

I sure hopes this helps you all,

**green18** · 02-16-2009, 11:46 AM

How about some pictures (examples) Ben.

jazzcoins · 02-16-2009, 11:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bhp3rd

i know there are other posts, threads on learning doubled dies but as many questions as we get on here and as much confusion as there is each day on ebay i feel a frank, not to technical thread is in order.
With this thread i will not go into the die making process in depth because i believe it is too much information for the beginner -

1. A doubled die is just that, a doubled, (not double) die. It is a die that has been hubbed or distorted in a manner during hubbing that results in devices, numbering, lettering or images on portions of that die that have been doubled, tripled, etc. - at this point a doubled die is independent of any coins it may strike. It is a doubled die first, then the coins it may strike are called doubled die coins from that die.

2. A doubled die is not a double strike, ejection strike, machine doubling, mechanically doubled or shift struck coin. Doubling on any coin "does not a doubled die make"!

3. The majority of doubled dies are closer than most people can even see that are new to the hobby. In other words it take some experience to even be able to discern most true doubled dies from coins struck from a normal die.

4. Doubled die have many characteristics that are common to most forms of true doubled dies. The doubling will have splits in the ends or serifs of letters and or numbers. The doubled images will be close to but slightly ajar of the primary devise. Think juxtapositioned of, slightly on top of but ajar from the underlying images. True doubled dies are generally thick extra design images with both appearing as if they were fully struck up. Also doubled dies will show doubling in a clockwise or counterclockwise or north and south direction as you look across the coins surface.
not all classes of doubled dies have nothching and serifs on there devices the class six doubled die destended hub doubling only usually indicates extra thickness on the letters with possible seperation lines but with no notching just wanted to make that clear
5. Except in rare cases true doubled dies will occur only on the obverse or reverse of the coin. There are doubled dies existing in both coins meant for circulation and proofs and in all denominations of us coins.

6. The largest amount of known doubled dies have been from about 1930 thru 1983 in us coins.

7. A coin with both a date and mint mark doubled in the same amount or direction prior to about 1990 is almost always a mechanically doubled coin - doubled dies occur during hubbing long before the mint mark was added.

8. An already rare coin also with a doubled die will generally not enhance it's value or in other words the "higher numismatic value" a coin has to begin with the less any die variety will add additional value to it. (think 1914-d lincoln cent with an rpm (re-punched mintmark) - the coin is already valuable to begin with the enhancement of the rpm is next to nothing - people who want that coin want the 14-d regardless of the varieity.

9. All of the above is not set in stone and there are exceptions to every rule and no ones knows everything - recently a looked at a 1963 guild to error / variety coins - the author stated many thing that has since been found to be not only untrue but completely in error.

10. And perhaps the most important of all - this area of numismatics is very rewarding but not for everyone. In fact i have met persons who cannot see doubled dies or only the strongest ones. I am not sure why this is but a suspect some kind of spacial difficulty or interpretation of images but several have show this prepencity. Additionally we search a lot of coins - i search most weeks up to 7500 lincolns. That equates to about 15 hours or more and many weeks i find nothing. On the flip side i have bought proof sets for $11 and sold the lincoln's for $2000. I have found dozens of new varieties for the wexler files and found at least $20,000 to $35,000 worth of die varieties in the past 12 years.

I sure hopes this helps you all,

jazec

Just Carl · 02-16-2009, 12:52 PM

Not meaning to say posts like this are not educational, but they are lengthly. And the same info is available on many, many other locations. Wouldn't it have been easier to just give a list of places that explain double dies?
For example I would have just listed web sites that already explain all that. Such as www.coppercoins.com
In addition to that the same guy from that web site has a book out on just Lincoln Cents with pages 27 to 44 on just double dies. And if you check that web site or that book you would see there are double dies for almost every year of that coin.
The problem with long posts are people like me that are really old and fall asleep easily. Then they find me slumped over the key board.

Hopefully you have a little CENTS of humor.

Just Carl · 02-16-2009, 12:56 PM

Never able to edit my posts but if you go to Google and type in double die coins you would get 271,000 results.

jazzcoins · 02-16-2009, 01:25 PM

You make sense just carl i have to agree with you a 100 percent on that one

JAZEC

bhp3rd · 02-16-2009, 01:44 PM

Yes, there are many other sites and it is kind of redundant but,
This was as boiled down as I could make it and only geared towards the new people trying to learn - that is what other sites seem to fail to do.
To me it seems they are way to technical at first and turn new person off plus they all seem to have their own biases in regards to who's files are "the one".
It is not an easy subject to learn at all - as I said I have not only shown doubled dies to new people and pointed it out "where to look" I have done this with several dealers and "they don't see it either".
So there is many obstacles to overcome with this subject matter I think many more than we realize.
There must be it's self evident because of the confusion - if we were doing a great job at it I don't think this level of confusion would be as pervasive as it is do you?
Trying to be helpful

jmpearso · 02-16-2009, 01:47 PM

Thanks for the write up and effort. I learn something new every day!

Jim M · 02-16-2009, 03:08 PM

Thanks for the post BH. As many times as we are asked here in CT about Doubled Dies I say it belongs here. I guess there are people who would rather ask a coin forum a question and get some varied responses regarding the question than take the word of a who knows what google search. If I was new to the hobby, how can I be sure that any given website is gospel?

I guess we aren't all professionals here and we do have questions. One day maybe I can profess to be a pro at this. I don't know what the requirements are as I have only been collecting for 45 years and dealing for 30 or so.

coinblogger · 02-17-2009, 03:13 PM

I think that it is a great post. Thanks for the information.

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