Hello fellow coin peeps I have noticed a few coins of mine that the rims are a lot higher than they should be on the surface of the coin. Any one know why? My first though was that the coins have been restored. Is this the reason? Any opinions are welcome
Higher than they should be ? Odds are they are just as high as they should be, just well struck examples. It is possible though that they were struck slightly higher pressures than normal.
So is this a good thing? I would say that the rims on some of my coins are at least 3 times as high as they should be.
Sounds like your talking about Roosevelt Dimes. I'm kind of an error coin collector. Many years ago I used to pull those high rimmed Dimes out of change thinking I found something great. Then I found that I was accumulating hundreds of them so it became obvious that high rimmed Roosevelt Dimes are just high rimmed Dimes and rather common. Yes it is true that some appear to be 2 or 3 times normal but I suspect that is due to most of the other ones in change just get a little worn down. I've seen similar rims on cents and quarters but never as pronounced as on the Dimes. Can not be anything of any concern since I've never seen then at coin shows on error coin tables.
The rims are basically over lapping the surface of the coin by quite a bit! And of course, more than it should be. http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee59/ryanbrooks11/DSCF1644.jpg But this is just one of the examples I have. I have a walking liberty that has this too!
P.S. No, it is not dimes. I actually have a few very old coins that have this too, and have compared it to others with the same date and mint mark, and they are different.
The rims are over lapping the surface by a lot, and I compared it with like 5 others, and this one is like 3 times the height. The photo does not show the hight that well, but trust me!
I agree with Just Carl on this. It looks like the same on the SAC. It is most noticable on dimes and usually is not as even as the SAC picture.
Ryan - the rims can only be so tall. The reason for that is because the rims are formed by the collar when the coin is struck. The collar looks a lot like a squared off C - the collar closes around the edge of the planchet and when the coin is struck the metal from the field areas flows into the collar and fills it. But once it is filled, that's it. So it can only be so tall. But on on weakly struck coins the collar may not be filled all the way and thus it may appear that the rims are not as tall as on a well struck example. But that isn't because the rim is taller, it is because the fields on well struck examples are lower in relation to the top of the rim. The same thing applies in the horizontal direction of the rim as it does in the vertical direction of the rim. The rim can only be as tall and as wide as the collar allows it to be. So on weakly struck coins the rim may appear to be shorter and narrower than on well struck examples. That's all it is.
??? The collar is just a flat piece of steel with a hole through it and the insides of that hole are just straight up and down. The inner edge and top of the rime are created by the die and the outer edge by the collar. But you are correct there is a limit to how high the rim can be and that is limited to how great the "step down" is that is cut into the edge of the die. That little "step down" is what creates the inner and top edges of the rim.
There's a lot of variation in the thickness of coins from year to year and mint to mint. There's not much variation at a given mint during the year but it's not unusal for some BU rolls to spill over the top of a standard size coin tube and others to need a lot of padding to keep them from bouncing around. There's also a condition where, apparently the metal gets up between the edge of the die and the collar. The mint calls this "finning" and is a serious problem because such coins can be too thick to work in machines and counters. This isn't the entire rim which is high but just the outer edge of the rim. You rarely see specifications for coin thicknesses because this is the result of designs and striking characteristics. Planchets are a given thickness but coins have a lot of variability. In the case of circulating coinage much of this variability ios caused by simple wear. As coins wear their rims give up metal preferentially and the coins get very thin very fast. If you don't believe it compare a roll of circulated 1965 quarters to a roll like BU '88-D. ...or a roll of AG Barber halfs to a BU walker roll. The difference in weigh isn't so great but the thickness is.
As usual such posts makes me run and dig through a pile of coins I always seam to have laying around. As usual many of the Roosevelt Dimes had apparently unusual high rims. Some Nickels possibly could be on the high side too. Just to common I suppose for anyone to even mention it in books on errors. Example nothing noted in the 2008 Red Book pages 390 and up on errors.
