Where were the hubs and dies made for the 1922 cents?

For much of the 20th century Philadelphia shipped dies to Denver and SF unhardened. The reasoning behind this, according to QDB (A guide Book of Lincoln Cents, p. 53), is they would be unsuitable for use, should the dies land in the wrong hands. Both SF and Denver hardened and finished their dies.

Average die life in 1920, at least with regard to Lincolns, was 450,000 strikes. This is almost three times the average in 1909. By 1927 dies often lasted more than a million strikes, due to chrome plating.

I am sure I read that Philadelphia often kept the better quality copper and shipped the lesser to the branch mints. Particularly during the awful 1920's. Since the branches made their own planchets did Philly ship the ingots or copper coils? Or is this just a tale?
Lance.

 

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Twenty obverse and twenty-seven reverse.

Mint records only show how many dies were made, not used. Maybe not all were used to produce 7+ million cents.
Lance.

 

You have given me something to ponder. Hmmmmmmm.....

 

Yes, except that the desirable "no-D strong" was an abrupt result, rather than a gradual one. That obverse die was pulled due to damage, and the mintmark was completely removed by lapping or resurfacing. It was then mated with a fresh reverse for die pair 2.
Lance.

 

" Hi Chris,
Mint regulations stated that all dies originated with the engraving department at the Philadelphia Mint. The other mints did not have engravers and were not authorized to buy the necessary engraving tools and punches. That does not mean someone didn't bring tools from home.

SF hardened its own dies until the 1890s and there is one instance where it was suggested that they added an "S" mintmark.

Carson also had equipment to harden dies, but it's not clear to me if they did this or not.

During the 1870s, engraver William Barber was noted to have sent out dies that were defective, lacked a date, etc. He probably send out ones w/o mintmarks, but I've not seen a specific letter.

The O/CC reverse dies did not go from Carson to NO. The went to Philadelphia first for several years, then to NO - possibly as "test dies" used as the Phil Mint engineer friend to identify why NO was having very short die life.

Of course, the negative cannot be proven.

Roger

Read more: http://www.cointalk.com/t193999/#ixzz1bqyr4eUv "

Did the mint change its regulations at some point? I mean how do we explain all those RPM's? Not the D over S etc., but the regular RPM's? These occur on most denominations and most years. Or did all the mints just ignore the regs? Since these are common errors, it seems to lend more credence to the supposition that the branch mints punched their own mintmarks.
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But the discussion sure is fun, is it not?

 

RPM's don't necessarily suggest that the branch mints affixed the mintmark. It only means that the person putting it on the die wasn't too accurate on the first attempt. I've heard that they would sometimes give it a light tap, check the positioning and if it was okay, then they would give it a good whack.

Chris

 

Additional clues are found in an article in the September 19, 2011 issue of Coin World. The front-page article 'Proof 1975 No S dime reaches rarefied levels' is continued on pages 60 and 61. The article explains that, in 1975, the San Francisco Assay Office struck dimes without a mintmark for circulation. (The San Francisco Mint lost its status as a Mint in 1962 and was known as the San Francisco Assay Office until 1988 when it regained full Mint status again.) At the same time the San Francisco Assay Office struck Proof coins with an 'S' mintmark.

Quoting from the article:

Explaining how the 1975 Proof "No S" dime was made the article states:

The clue to which I referred is the sentence:

So, according to Coin World, mintmarks were applied to the working dies at the Philadelphia Mint before the dies were shipped to the branch Mints.