In their defense, mintages on these are into 10 significant digits these days. I have my opinions on the quality of their lower-mintage pieces, but the stark production realities of only meeting demand by running a ton of equipment at full speed all the time impose real limitations on the process. I doubt anyone else on the planet is producing the sheer volume of coinage these guys are, and maybe a walk a bit closer to their shoes is in order.
1966 dimes were supposed to have as much relief as the silvers but few of them did because they weren't fully struck up and dies were heavily worn or not fully hubbed. Even when dies were good, the strikes were weak.
That's die wear. The dies were about to be retired. Nothing special, spend it or keep it as a reference piece so you can compare it to others. It is a very nice example of extreem die wear But fyi, you should start your own thread next time. This is considered thread hijacking and is frowned upon for future reference
Is silver softer to strike than cu-Ni? I know nickel is harder, but a copper nickel alloy might not be. I'm not that familiar with this. As for the volume, yes that should be taken into consideration. But the country with the greatest GDP might be able to do a tad better. Just look how flat a quarter is today.
I would like to know if the zincolns they are striking now, really are saving money over solid coins. I know they have a very poor half life compared to the older ones. May be the reason they have to strike so many more.
Cu/ ni is a lot harder. But the reason they wear so much better is largely that the metalis lighter so it has less momentum when it collides or rubs other coins. Of course now days coins aren't spent as often as they were in the old days. A silver quarter could be spent as often as 20 times a month and the clads now are down to about eight times.