I knew. He just didn't always grease up his Eagle. Sometime he did.......... And sometimes he didn't............
I wonder how a grease fill can eliminate the center of a letter without affecting the top or bottom. Curious.
Now how did I know that you would be the one to pose the question I've been pocketing and waiting for dave. I keep looking at it and scratching my head trying to think what exactly filled the dies. But seeing Lee's examples I guess that's just how grease acts on the recesses of an ike die?
It's more than just grease folks. It's machine oil and debris from the minting process. It accumulates kind of like sticky mud on the bottom of your shoes with the big exception being that the die squashes it at 120 tons or pressure instead of 170 lbs. It can flow in literally any direction since not all planchets sit in the coining chamber exactly perpendicular to the dies. Not all planchets are of the same thickness. Just way too many variables involved here.
Right. With the exception of the fact that "grease" is a relative term since we know that the stuff which fills dies has been compacted enough times and with enough force to actually make impression on coins. For example, "dropped Letters" are not really dropped letter as much as they are this "stuff" which has filled a dies letters and then broken free thereby creating in impression of a letter on a coin. Terminology within numismatics should not be taken literally without some understanding of the forces and processes which occur during the minting process.
I found a dropped letter quarter and I can tell you it must have a lot of pressure and be compacted a huge amount to be forced into the coin to leave an impression. I wonder if anyone noticed any of the quarters (in the wild) before it dropped out, because they would either have the lightest mintmark present or have it seem like it had no mintmark.
Dropped letters are plainly at one end of the viscosity range when evaluating Mint Crud. My question is, is there a point in the viscosity range where the crud is firm enough to not be distorted under 150 tons of pressure, yet viscous enough to flow into devices? That just doesn't work for me. Not that I have a better idea.
