Hey Guys, Well let me clarify on the title, I guess the question technically isn't for "everybody" but you know people who can help. Alright so I might sound quite (as us video game nerd say) noobish aka newbie. Well anyway how does the machine that makes the coin know that it is stamping the right way. Like how the head and the tails side are upside down from eachother. hopefully you know what I mean. Thanks, Jason
There are three dies used to mint a coin. The collar die, which holds the coin within its circle, the anvil die, which imparts the reverse (tails) image on the coin, and the hammer die, which imparts the obverse (heads) image upon the coin. All three come together, with a planchet in between them, at one time, under incredible pressure, producing a coin. The anvil and hammer dies are mounted in the press in such a way as to have every coin come out with the proper heads/tails alignment. Sometimes the dies will become loose causing the dies to move slightly and the heads/tails sides of the coin are not aligned properly, causing what is commonly called a rotation error.
AND, the dies can be inserted into the press only one way which happens to have the proper orientation. There is some "movement" with the dies though which causes what's known as "misaligned dies" but having a "medallic Orientation" (the same as foreign coins) is nearly impossible with today's minting techniques.
Technically speaking, the machine doesn't know anything, but if the Mint employee doesn't know more than the machine, then he will be looking for a new job in short order. Chris
The cause of die rotation could be caused by misaligned sinking of the dies, loosening or omission of the fasteners, or breakage of the die shaft. Nearly impossible in modern times is right, although there are some recent exceptionally rotated coins . . . notably the 1989-D Congressional Dollar which I have never owned, the 1976 T2 Ike Dollar which I owned rotated 165 degrees, and 1994 Lincoln cents of which I owned a handful of pieces rotated 180 degrees.
Some coin presses also have sensors that automatically interrupt the minting process if a blank has the wrong size or is in the wrong position. Such sensors can also detect the proper position of the dies so that the orientation (upside down in the US, parallel in pretty much the rest of the world) should always be same. Should. Christian
