Since I have very little experience on grading Mercury dimes, what do you all think this one grades? I think the lines are die polish. Thanks
If you are talking about the parallel lines in the left field of the reverse, yes, those are die polish lines. The lines are in the field and do not cross the raised devices. If the lines were also on the raised devices they would be hairlines or scratches on the coin.
Die polish line are odd. But as for grade MS-64 No full bands,but still a a very nice Mercury Dime:thumb:
Nice luster. Not a full strike - lack of full bands or better. Slightly weak obverse strike. MS63. Might get a 64 because of the luster.
Thanks again everyone. I got it for $5 in a junk bin full of AU mercs and it stood out like a spot light.
I don't think they are die polish lines, and I suspect that is why you found it in a junk bin. If you look at the different pics when they are expanded to full size you can see different things. In pic 1 some of those lines extend onto the neck. And the lines criss-cross and go in different directions above and below the motto. And look at what's going on behind the head. In pic 2 some of the lines extend onto the helmet above the forehead. My guess is somebody worked on that coin and that's why it was put in the junk bin to begin with.
Not to sound arrogant or anything, but wouldn't it be possible for polish lines to go a little bit into the devices and have them criss-sross?
The die is the reverse of the coin or the coin is the reverse of the die, whichever sounds best. The fields of the coin are made by the highest points of the die. The devices are the more recessed on the die. The die is made of very rigid tempered steel, so to polish it ( unless a proof die), generally they used fine emery or other metal polishing paper/cloths backed by a rigid block of wood if done by hand as was in 1935. Since the back was rigid, the emery cloth could not flex down into the recesses of the die design. So the short answer is not enough to be visible, and only on the edges of the devices, and not across the surface of the coin.
Jim, it was not done by hand. Even back in the 1800's (and probably before that) they used a mechanical device to polish dies. In fact the most recent article I have ever found that describes how dies are (they still use it) and were polished was written in 1907. I have described the process many times in other posts. They used a flat, spinning zinc disk to polish dies. While I have never been able to pin down the exact size, practical considerations dictate that the disk would have to be at least 8 inches in diameter and probably more like 12. The die was held in a rigid clamp so that it was parallel to the disk and then lowered against the spinning disk. The disk was coated with diamond dust paste varying in fineness of grit for the different stages of polishing. Now, the reason that the die polish lines cannot cross is simple. If you take a disk that is 12 inches in diameter that is spinning in a circle, the portion of that disk that can touch the surface of a die varying in size from say a dime (1/2 inch) to a dollar (1 1/2 inches) is quite small. You have 2 circular objects touching each other and they touch in an arc. But the portion of the arc of the disk is equal to the size of the die. And 1/2 inch of an arc of a 12 inch diameter object is almost a straight line when viewed by itself. That is why what we see on a coin appears to be straight lines. They aren't really straight, but they are a such a small piece of a much larger arc that they appear to be straight. Anyway as the disk spins and die is stationary the grit from the diamond dust paste leaves tracks, fine lines in the surface of the die. But those tracks are all exactly parallel and evenly spaced and it is impossible for them to criss-cross each other. The laws of geometry prohibit it. Yes, I know you can show me a hundred pictures of coins with criss-crossing lines on them. But that does not mean that those lines are all die polish lines. Dies can also have scratches on them from being wiped off with a cloth to remove dirt and or grease while they are in use. They can get fine scratches on them from tools or strike-through objects or virtually anything that the face of the die comes into contact with in the course of its use. So when you view a coin that has criss-crossing lines, some of those lines might be die polish lines but the others are die scratches.
I admit I haven't seen it myself, I was just basing my comment on the section on die polishing in "Margolis and Weinberg's The Error Coin Encyclopedia" 3rd ed. 2000, about the board and hand operation. Jim
Thank you GDJMSP, your comment answered my question in a very instructive way. Before I had no idea on how they polished the dies but now I know.
Think about it for a minute Jim. How long would it take for 1 person to polish just 1 die doing it by hand ? And do you think for even 1 second that a person could hold a piece of wood covered with emery paper completely flat and parallel with the face of a die and not round off the edges of the die or end up with the face of the die being lopsided ? You ever see any lopsided coins ? It's hard enough to get the dies adjusted so their faces are parallel with each other in the press as it is, now imagine how much more difficult that would be if the die faces were polished by hand. Yes, there are/were probably some cases where they attempted to remove or polish out clash marks other forms of die damage in small areas by hand using small specialized tools. But I think that's probably about it. And no doubt, at some point in time they did polish dies by hand. But I think it likely that that went away around the same time that milled coinage came into being.
