Hey Error Folks - Learn Me About A Brockage

This is a coin currently up for auction by Heritage. They call it a first strike brockage of the obverse... The old large cent has a correct reverse and the obverse is an inverted reverse.... Now I am a historically based collector but I do like to understand what I am looking at and for the life of me, I cannot reason out in my mind how an inverted design can be struck.... Just looking for some education..... The image is courtesy of Heritage.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Basically think about it like this - a pair of dies strikes a coin. Instead of being ejected, the coin sticks to one of the dies. Now, a new planchet enters and the coin is struck. The side with the fresh die strikes the normal pattern - but now, the coin stuck from the last strike *now becomes the die*.

In the same way that a die is the inverse of the coin (raised bits on a coin are the deepest parts of the die), now the highest parts of the coin sink into the planchet and become the lowest parts of the brockage.

Essentially, the brockage is the exact image of the die - incuse where the coin would be raised.

 

Randy, it happens when a previously struck coin sticks to the die. The next coin struck will have one side normal and the other a mirror image of the normal image because the stuck coin acts as the die.
EDIT: @physics-fan3.14 beat me to it.

 

SOUNDS good to me guys/gals!

 

So the image I am looking at above is an incuse image then, right? If it is incuse, I totally get it. Not much different than someone squeezing coins together in a vice to create a "faux" error coin.... That photo certainly does not appear incuse to me. Thanks Physics!

 

Yeah, it is often hard to see with a straight on image like that.

This is one of the rare cases where you really do want to angle the coin a bit to take the image, so you can see it incuse. Or show a video so you can see it move.

If you had it in hand, it would be immediately obvious.

 

Fun thread

 

It does’t appear incuse to me either…imo…Spark

 

That sure looks raised to me.

 

To me no doubt it looks raised.

 

It's a 'photo-Gremlin' - the Brockage IS incused,
but it shows as raised in the photo - forgot the
name of this effect......

 

Wow, that’s a new one on me.

 

I can't force my eyes to see it as incuse either. Briefly in the slab image maybe, but as soon as I zoom in it flips back to raised.

 

“Lucy!…you got some ‘splainin’ to do!!” — Ricky Ricardo

Heritage needs to provide images that show the incuse nature. Big fail on their part for what we see currently: glare and shadows that make our brains think it is raised. They have the advantage with the coin in hand (or did, whenever they first imaged the coin).

I believe Fred and I believe Heritage but every time I look at it I see raised.
…imo…Spark

 

An optical illusion called the “Crater Effect”. @Fred Weinberg
See a List of Optical Illusions at Wikipedia.

It involves the illumination of a subject from above from different angles. Our brains can’t help but see both a concave and convex image.

To avoid it, the lighting has to eliminate the glare and the shadow. I believe diffused light would be one solution…imo…Spark

 

…And I’m not saying that glare and shadow are all bad. Conversely, when they are employed we can decipher the difference between a gouge/scratch and a true die crack.

We are laboring under the constraints of 2 Dimension images versus real life depictions in 3 Dimensions.

We see it all the time when a scratch is thought to be a die crack and vice versa, so this scenario is not immune from the Crater Effect either…imo…Spark

 

Wow… You are right. I am on my phone and if I scroll up to it quickly, it is incuse. As soon as the scrolling stops and my eyes focus on the image, it is no longer incuse….. where’s Bill Nye when you need him??

 

Thats a cool coin. It is a flip of the settings on your camera, can't use the auto feature on the DSLR to catch these.
You gonna put any bids on it Randy?

 

Here's mine of an 1860 British 1/2 P. Double heads.

 

Oh no. Not at all. Not my cup-o-tea really. I always peruse the Heritage coin auctions and when I saw this one it just bamfoozled me. I collect from a historical perspective but when I see an error I tend to understand the mechanics of how they came to be. This one totally confused me until I was told it was an incuse image. Then it all made sense.