While I get what he says in the article, it still doesn't explain how to identify what genuine hub doubling looks like with incuse designs. It merely tells what they don't look like.
Exactly. I'm beginning to think that it is some kinda of trade secret that not even the trade experts have. It's easy for anyone to say it, but no one can prove it.
It was Pool night last night, so I'm back with some more info . When the design elements on a coin are incuse rather than raised, the appearance of mechanical doubling is even more deceptive. Since the design element on the die is raised, when the loose die shifts and bounces it will leave a secondary impression on the coin that is incuse just like the normal design element. All of the characteristics of normal doubled dies, such as split serifs and separation of images, will appear on the mechanical doubling images. Many of the modern coins such as the America The Beautiful quarters have design elements that are incuse. On the obverse of these quarters it is the lettering near the rim. When these incuse design elements show doubling, it is almost always going to be mechanical doubling. The following photos show mechanical doubling to the incuse letters around the rim of a 2011-P Pennsylvania Gettysburg quarter.
Ok, I get that. The problem that I have is that the machine doubling on incuse letters makes the element wider or there is always an impression of the correct size visible and an added impression near it from a second or third vibration strike. Your photos prove this. When the working die is struck with the hub and it moves, pops into correct alignment, vibrates, or whatever, it will shave the raised element on the die down, much in the same way that machine doubling shaves metal off of raised elements on a coin. In the photo's that I have posted, take a close look at the R and K in Clark. There isn't a full impression that is made wider by a vibration strike, but there is what apears to be an element with metal shaved from the side and a ghost double beside it and nether are of normal size. If all of this is correct, hub doubling of incuse letters should look like machine doubling of raised elements and machine doubling should look like hub doubling of raised elements.
I guess that's why all the DDRs & DDOs ( ATB Quarters ) are some what, in the center of the Reverse .
I guess I'll ask a different question - are there examples of incuse designs that have genuine hub doubling ? And to further quantify the question, I'm not talking about the modern stuff. It's all single squeeze hubbing anyway which, at least in my opinion, doesn't even produce genuine hub doubling, regardless of what the "experts" say. Certainly not in the classical sense of the definition.
Am I missing something ? I ask because unless I am mistaken that coin does not have an incuse design.
It doesn't. Of all the coins (1000's) with incuse designs that the experts have listed, none of those coins point out the incuse part of the design, only the doubling of the relief parts.
The difference for the ATB quarters is that they are all made using the single squeeze method. For these coins, doubling will be at the center of the coin. It's just not possible to have significant hub doubling like you show at the rim of the coin. As Doug mentioned, this is a completely different type of doubling than the traditional hub doubling of classic series. I don't have the references for any of the Indian head gold, but I would guess there are some doubled dies in those series.