These are all from the same bag. Are they die pairs, I do have other evidence, I just wanted the community to look them over and see if they have any commonalities and maybe a die pairing. Does anyone know how many presses feed a ballistic bag? The dies are misaligned in different positions and each have slightly different characteristics. All of them have the same early mid die state obv. The hives look a bit different. Have a look, I have a few others that could be later die stages.
There is a Die Break forming between the columns. You can see the pattern on all 3 Cents. Over time they progress into a larger die break. Some call it Beehive but I like to call it a Hornets Nest. I have several. Here are 3 examples from my collection..
"Hornet's nest" does avoid confusion with the rare and very expensive Mormon "beehive" gold coins, which were the only beehives I'd heard of in a numismatic context. But thanks for the explanation. I can see now why someone would call that blob a beehive or hornet's nest.
Nice finds on the die breaks. It impossible to know how many presses were running at the time. It could be one, five or more. The mint presses run as they need them to and they all feed into one bin before going into a.ballistic bag.
Ballistic bags you say. Too bad they're not spill proof. Just like those dimes in TX. https://www.foxnews.com/video/6372120981112
My superficial examination - the MM position looks to be the same on all 3 - so I say yes to same die pairing.
The title of this thread got me excited as I collect coins with beehives depicted on them. Still, I am glad that I read further and discovered something new to add to my knowledge base about error coins. I would go for naming the error a hornets nest as such a nest will tend to be a permanent home for the hornets. A bee swarm would be a temporary situation until they decide to move on or a beekeeper captures the swarm.
As far as how many machines used to produce cents at any given time, there are currently a total of 63 in Philadelphia and 54 in Denver. They would have several down at any given time for regular maintenance, so in Denver maybe 40 are running (guess #1)? Looking at production numbers from Denver in 1971 there were (in millions): 1¢ - 1,911 5¢ - 316 10¢ - 378 25¢ - 258 (hard to believe; more dimes, nickels & halves made than quarters) 50¢ - 302 $1 - 68 A total of 3,233 million coins. The machines run at 750 coins per minute (all denominations run at the same speed). If the Denver mint worked only dayshift for 8 hours for 200 days that year that would be 1,600 hours, or 96,000 minutes. At 750 coins per minute, you get 72 million. Multiply that by the 40 machines you get 2,880 million, a little less than the reported total of 3,233 million, but I believe (guess #2) they would run two shifts during busier times. Cents were nearly 60% of production so would probably require the same ratio of presses (guess #3). 60% of 40 presses would be 24. My guess (#4) is 24 presses running at any given time in 1971 to make cents. However, I have absolutely no idea about the bags or bag loaders, nor can I find any information on them. A final guess (#5) would be 1 loader for 6 presses. This is like a 5-game parlay, where at even odds you would have a 1 in 100,000 chance of winning, but I will put it out there - 24 total presses, 6 presses per bag loader. Regarding the chances of a bag holding multiple coins that were produced around the same time and from the same machine, I asked a while back concerning Morgans and was told by some here that was patently impossible due to the way they were handled after being struck. I still believe coins minted consecutively would have a better chance of ending up in the same bag in the end.
So best guestimate is 6 presses feeding a bag. I can get behind that statement. I have found a clash on many of them that resemble this clash except abraded. https://www.maddieclashes.com/tdc-1c-1971d-01/ The beehives, some with a heavy clash only seen on the reverse. Also both obverse die varieties ODV-027 and ODV-028. Most of the bag is following the same varieties. The beehives being the earliest die stages so far, most are abraded.
AND, if they started all the presses at approximately the same time, with fresh dies, and the beehive is a (proven) stress point, it's not unreasonable that multiple dies might have the same crack in the same place at approximately the same time... interesting
Altogether very cool finds. P&G, are you doing this directly from the 1971 mint bag? If so, can we see/get the specs on it? pictures, coin count, weight, lettering, whatever you have. As hard as I try, I cannot get much info on the bags from this era and back to the turn of the century, especially Morgan mint bags.
There is an excellent resource for mint bags from Pete Smith. Here is a copy of a photo he shows (page 11) of a 1971 Denver cent bag. Newman Numismatic Portal at Washington University in St. Louis | Comprehensive Research & Reference for U.S. Coinage
