I’m often amused and always confused on the different ways mintmark appear on coins. Often they are crisp and clear and then they are mishapened ugly globs. It appears most of the fugugly ones are on larger coins like quarters and halves where it would seem they shouldn’t be so disformed. Why? Bad dies? Leprechauns in the mint? Russian collusion?
I don't have the specifics with regards to years in front of me (google it) but I understand that mint marks were manually punched into dies "by hand" for X amount of time. (And I am mainly a washington quarter collector so this observation doesn't apply to series outside of that). It is these specific mint marks (each one with its own style) that aid in die identification. One of my job duties includes "stamping" new oilfield equipment with high tensile dies to make inventory numbers on each piece of equipment. And wow! You should see how crooked, misplaced, doubled, etc. a stamp can be placed. This said, and just from my experience, I can understand how manual placement of mintmarks could have been such a headache! Every time I stamp a new number I'm thinking "I hope I don't make another RPM"... haha.. Thats my twenty five cents.
Yes, but if I were putting my signature on a product I would want to represent myself with better quality. The mint mark is the signature of the producing mint. They should care more.
http://coinauctionshelp.com/mintmarkfacts.html#.XP0y6I9OlPY This is the first link i ever tried to paste so maybe it will work out!!
Real RPMs are somewhat rare, but circulation and/or damage intentionally and unintentionally done is much more common if you look through the threads here. For every 1 real RPM, there are 5-10 that are called RPMs that are just 'ugly' due to grease, dings , and people's Pareidolia. Judging a RPM on a coin that is near uncirculated or better is easy with a good scope. On a circulated coins with a lot of dings it is hard. All 3 of the ones shown fits " wear and damage" more than a MM as punched by the worker. IMO, Jim
I agree @desertgem ... I guess my observations above seemed to be more directed at RPMs which wasn't actually the intent. What I was trying to get at is that manual placement of the mint mark (in my opinion) opened the door for variations in shape, size, placement, and form of the mint mark. Hence, from die to die, the mint mark could look or be placed differently. My input didn't take PMD or like Doug said die wear into consideration.
Well, my response was specifically addressing the question asked by the OP - And for that question, what I posted - die wear - is the answer. That said, yes, mint mark punches with different fonts on them, and different placement of the mint marks, even RPMs - those things were due to the mint marks being punched into the die by hand. But those things have nothing to do with the specific question that was asked.
