What happened to the 1 in the date? Never seen that before. It looks like a wiffle ball bat. Though the camera angle doesn't show it exactly it tapers in symmetrically on each side.
It is thought-provoking. Never seen anything like that before. I'm interested in what the others will say about it.
Best guess would be grease. The grease is pushed to uniformity in the lowest pressure areas(depressions), not to erratic spots. The fact that is is evenly split at one end may be a little odd.
That's still my best guess to. The only thing that throws me off with that(aside from the evenness) is the continuity of the fields. There's a very faint die line running from the 9 to the very edge of the one at the tapered end. Seems like if it were struck through that the die line would have stopped at the edge of where the rest of the 1 should have been. I found that in a BU roll. I had hoped I might find another from the same die that might shed light on it, but that was the only one I found in the roll.
Looks like Alex Rodriguez's bat. DL list and all that's about the size o' wood he's been carrying lately.......
Jody, in your two statements actually contain the answer to this riddle. To get the answer we must go back in time. To be more precise, back in time earlier in the production run on this particular obverse working die. The very faint line you mention is actually very faint remnants from the reverse design of the Memorial building horizontal line impacting the obverse working die in that particular area. What happened is a die clash occurred earlier in the production run. The Mint press operator stopped the press, pulled and heavy abraded (polished) the obverse die in this particular area at the lower digit "1" of the date. This dressing/polishing caused the loss of design detail on the digit "1" at the lower section. Now, let's go forward in time to your coin. What you see is the very late die state (VLDS) of the same obverse die but now with extreme metal flow lines. This metal flow also has created additional wearing away at the exact same area of the digit "1" lower section that was already previously heavily abraded earlier in the production run. On your coin the die polishing lines are gone also due to the heavy metal flow. This is what you see on your coin. Your second statement would have been crucial in giving you the answer if you would have come across an earlier die state specimen in that BU roll that would have allowed you to see the prior die clash and subsequent polishing to remove some of those clash remnants. Billy
OK. Now for the big question. Does a die that has been changed this much be considered a "new" die ? And from this point, are the coins stamped with this die a new variety ? Thanks, gary
I see a problem with the proposed senario. If the die line is the remains of the horizontal line from the Memorial that would mean a die clash. That clash mark would end at the edge of the 1 where it was before the polishing. If it was then polished enough to reshape the bottom of the one it would almost certainly have removed all of the clash mark. And even if it didn't it would still end where where the edge of the 1 WAS not where it is now. On the other hand, maybe I'm looking at the wrong die line. There seem to be three coming away from the distorted area of the 1. the uppermost goes straight horozontal and is probably the remains of the die clash. It does not go all the way to the edge of the 1. The other two are lower down and run down to the right. Those do go all the way to the edge of the distorted 1 and are probably polish lines. No, it would merely be a late die state of an earlier die variety. Using the definitions of die variety used on the early coins, a die variety or die marriage is the pairing of two specific dies. It doesn't matter what happens to those dies, cracks, severe polishing that removes details etc, as long as those same two dies are paired up it is the same variety.
Die clash remnants may or may not be perfectly aligned with the opposite working die on the press. Though certainly not all cases, but most coins you flip over from the obverse to the reverse we will notice that the reverse is not perfectly aligned with the obverse. There are Mint tolerances for allowing slight rotational alignment within the particular pair of working dies on the production press. I have an example of this phenomenon in one of my many tubes of various coins. If I remember correctly, it shows what Jody sees on the 1964 coin posted but is an earlier state that exhibits the die clash and the polishing affecting the lower section of the "1" digit that gives the appearance of a baseball bat. When I come across the coin I'll shoot some photos on it and post. Regards, Billy
Below is an example that I came across. Granted, it's not the same date but the exact same phenomenon is happening on this 1963 Lincoln cent that happened on Jody's 1964 Lincoln cent. We can see the heavy die polishing the Mint press operator applied to the obverse working die so as to hide the die clash remnants affecting that particular area. Already the extreme polishing has seriously diminished the lower detail of the digit "1" of the date as well as also affecting some of the other date digits. On the reverse we can just barely see the remaining remnants of the die clash in bays #3 and #8. The same phenomenon on this 1963 is also what happened on the 1964 cent. However, the only difference is that Jody's coin is more at the end of a full production run and the metal flow lines have also compounded to the eroding away of the lower section of the digit "1" even more so and has wash-out the die polishing. Regards, Billy
Thanks for that detailed response. Makes perfect sense and it was something that never occurred to me.
Billy, I've never said this to another man but, Where have you been in my life. It sure is good to have you around
Billy, I do have another question about this now that I've thought about it. Why wouldn't that kind of polishing change the height, or the topography if you will, of the fields in that area? Like we see with abrasion doubling. Thanks, Jody
