Can someone please explain to me the difference between a die stage and a die state? I know what a die state is but I can't seem to figure out a difference between the two. Thanks!
They are together "wear and tear." Die state is normal die wear or die erosion. Dies wear down just as coins do only in reverse--the lowest points of a coin such as the fields, date, denticles ect are the highest points on the die so they wear down first. Dies are also graded such as: early state, mid state, late state ect. Die stage is the tear part or damage to the die: cuds, chips die cracks. They are usually cataloged as stage A, B, C, etc. The more tear they have the further along the alphabet they are.
"...There are two ways of describing die progressions. The first focuses on die wear. The description of the wear has been termed 'die state' by Delma Romines, the developer of the theory..." "...The theory behind 'die stage' progressions has seen several revisions through the years. The general theory begins like this: When a die is first placed in use, it is perfect, that is free from 'tear.' Then as a die is used, it developes imperfections that grow steadily worse and worse until the die has to be pulled from the production line. These imperfections consist mainly of die clashes, die cracks, and die breaks..." The RPM Book Second Edition Lincoln Cents by James Wile, PhD. pgs iv &v
They are related, but different things. Some dies wear through their life without incident, and these are described as: Stage A: EDS; Stage B: MDS; etc. But in general, this linear progression is not the norm. This is partly due to an important part of "tear": the touch-up work done on the die, which produces scratches and gouges and such. Theoretically, even in Early Die State there can be many Stages. The "tear" due to striking coins can also be highly non-linear, and the die chips and cracks and such that are also part of Stage progression happen at unpredictable and irregular timings. Layer-on a clash or two and the Stage vs State progressions can be seen to be fairly independent.
To better understand how dies wear how about looking at some pictures of a die with wear. These were originally posted by LostDutchman some time ago.
Die State refers to the amount of wear the die receives during use and is a continuous slow transition from a sharp new die through a heavily worn flowlined die ready for retirement. We speak of early, middle, late, and very late die states but there is no point in the dies life where you can point to it and say "Here is where it changed from Early to Middle, or Middle to Late" Die Stage refers to specific discrete steps or events that happen in the life of the die where you CAN point to the coin and say "this happened before the event, or this coin was struck after such and such event so it is an earlier or later die stage. Events that can create stages are things like clashes, cracks, extensions of cracks, die chips, die crumbling, cuds, die polishing. For example say you have a new die, then it clashes, then a crack develops, then the clash fades away either from wear or being polished off, then another crack develops and the die is retired. This is a dies with four distinct die stages. And die stage may have no relation to die state. Say you have a die that only strikes say 1000 coins before it is retired, but during those thousand strikes it started as a new die, suddenly developed a major rir to rim crack, and then a piece of the die broke away and fell off creating a cud. You now have coins that come in early, middle, and late dies stages, but all of them are made from an early die state with no real die wear. It is also possible for the opposite to happen and a die go through its whole life without having any distinct damage happen to it (no chips, cracks, clashes etc.). In which case you have early , mid, late, and very late die states, but they are all the same die stage. What causes confusion is sloppy use of language where the two terms are used interchangeably. They aren't the same thing and they should be used properly to avoid such confusion.
Even if though there are no describe-able markers on the die other than die wear, the dies are still described in die Stages according to die State progression. So a die that "simply" wore due to striking, from EDS to LDS, would have 3 Stages: Stage A: EDS; Stage B: MDS; Stage C: LDS. There are very few dies with this simple Stage progression. One example I found with a cursory look was 1963-D RPM-012: http://varietyvista.com/02b LC RPMs Vol 2/1963DRPM012.htm
This is an example of why all the confusion EDS = Early Die State MDS = Middle Die State LDS = Late Die State http://www.lincolncentforum.com/forum/showthread.php?30218-Acronym-Abbreviation-List
