1867 No Rays RPD Shield Nickel

Yeah, that's right. And I'll bet the ranch on it.

Look at it this way, guys. This was the first shield nickel. These digits were individually punched into the working dies back then, as these dates weren't on the master dies. What are the odds every single one of these digits were individually re-punched when the engraver could simply have started anew from a fresh working die? Look, also, at the superior impressions. They're all cut off, distorted. Every single one isn't as it should look. This coin took a hop when it was struck. That's what I'm seeing in this date.

We can go on and on. Send it off to someone like Wexler, put him on the spot. Better than just continuing to go around in circles and calling people names like a bunch of four-year-olds.

PS: Hey, I just called you all a bunch of four-year-olds. See what I mean? Lol.

 

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Umm - you do realize most of this thread is 7 months old.

 

Now I do. Lol, pick on @howards, he started it back up!

 

I did not even read most of the thread myself- until after my post about nice pickup. I know some mind old threads being dug up, but I don't especially where there is more information to be posted from one so knowledgeable like howard. As a matter of fact I wonder if Fletcher ever visits here any more.

 

I think you're right, Mark, Fletcher powdered off. As for Howard, he doesn't say much, but when he does, yeah, I listen.

 

This is an example where working at a very short focus makes the coin have an eerie three dimensional appearance, particularly on the next to the last photo where a stem of the foliage on top of the shield seems be sticking out making you wonder why it didn't break off when circulated.

 

Something is left out. Photo some time fool ya but it's the context. Why I don't ? Try re read the 3 pages

 

The dates were punched with a 4-digit gang punch. It is not far out to consider the idea that all 4 digits would show repunching. (We probably don't see it more often because the mint polished the dies.)

The mint never (to my knowledge) threw out a shield nickel die that could be salvaged to strike coins, no matter how badly it was messed up. They needed the dies too badly.

 

I'm splitting your paragraphs...

Well then that's pretty compelling evidence this is an RPD. The flat or shallow underlay is just explained away by the second punch having gone deeper into the die. And I just lost the ranch. And let that be a lesson for you all, gambling doesn't pay.

But 28,890,500 coins minted says they used multiple working dies. Do you have an opinion on the working die lives? Even assuming they were vigorously worked-over before discarded, do you have an opinion on how many of them likely were used to mint that volume of coins? I'd think I'd like to know that, if you do.

 

I have to go with MD

 

The distorted digits still bother me some on this one. The thing is, "flat" and "shelflike" doesn't cut it, here. This date could have been prepped on the working die, i.e., filed down and polished to death, in anticipation of the second "gang punch." In such case, it would naturally be sitting shallower, i.e., "flatter" and more "shelflike," off the coin. These distorted digits, that's another story. They're suggestive of a slide or smear to form the underlay digits.

 

Personally I think some of this is extremely hard to determine on shield nickels - other coins are easier. I have not been convince 100% to either side, but at first glance I sway toward MD.

 

Die life was as low as 15,000 in the early years of the shield nickels rising to around 28,000 by the end of the series. The die shop was going crazy trying to keep up with the demand for dies. That is why so many defective, substandard, and even unfinished dies were pressed into service.

 

Fantastic, @Conder101. Thanks.

 

My estimates of die life differ slightly from Conder101's but not by much. As low as 10000/die in the beginning, rising to 25000/die by 1883.

The fact that a 4 gang punch was used does not affect the judgment of strike doubling. The coin in question is definitely strike doubled, for all the reasons I previously stated. If you (generic you, not picking on anyone) think "flat and shelflike" doesn't describe this coin, you really need to rethink your mental picture of what flat and shelflike looks like because the coin in question is exactly what one expects from flat and shelflike strike doubling.

 

I guess I haven't seen enough, then, Howard, as I'm still thinking it's plausible the original digit cavities were simply filed and polished down to the point of leaving that shallow, flat, shelflike impression, in anticipation of the second punch. The superior digits appear disturbed, however, distorted. I can especially see that in the thinned outlines in the 8 and 6 suggestive of them having been compromised in those areas. In strike doubling, those superior digits are disturbed, foreshortened, as they're taken from to form the underlay impressions. I've never seen strike doubling in which that isn't the case, to varying degrees. The superior impressions are always compromised, distorted, as here.

We're getting to the same place, although through different logic. I'll concede, nobody ever mentions what I'm talking about. Still, how can it be otherwise, that when a date is re-punched, the superior impression isn't always fully-intact? How can't it be, unless it's also strike doubled, in which case that part of it is cut off, borrowed from, to form the underlay impression? And we see that, here, in these superior digits. They're cut off, borrowed from, all over. If that's what they looked like on the gang punch, that's one cockeyed gang punch.

 

The reason one can't draw reliable conclusions from the appearance of a shield nickel's digits is because the dates were entered by hand, with varying amounts of pressure, placement, tilt, and any other variables that would be introduced by a hand process. Planchet variations further complicate the issue.

If you examine shield nickel dates that are not strike doubled, you still see a lot of variance in appearance.

The gang punches were also subject to wear, and their appearance probably changed with time.

 

OK. I'll keep an eye out for those variances. I didn't think they could be that fouled up.

 

Gee almost 5 years old, alway nice to to reply to an old thread

 

This is what I should have posted