Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;LEG END, post: 942936, member: 26139&quot;]<b>Die Gouges, some say.</b></p><p><br /></p><p>I have collected these die gouges, as some call them, for some time. All my examples are on memorials, with a few notable dimes, and some halves. Thse 1862 marks are repeated again and again, and are not clashes. Moreover, these marks are made by tooling used before the annealing stage, as this is the only way the gouges remain so crisp. Most of these coins are discarded by collectors, not being viewed as important. I take an alternate view. Many of the die gouges I see are on doubled dies, and especially rotated dies. I have a series of over 100, year 2000 Wide AM cents with irregular gouges that I call striations, which is the most accurate term. The striations are through the E Pluribus Unum on the reverse, and are all EXACTLY the same, with a clear pattern of die wear vanishing the gouges at a later stage in the minting process. Finally, I have 2000 Wide Am cents with straight rays, which are also gouges, that are especially the same as this 1862 example. One 2000 Wide AM has just ONE RAY, and I call it my illuminated cent. I won an auction this week for a 2000 with what I thought was just one ray, but it had more, matching many of the other with die gouge Rays that are in my collection. The most important aspect of this comment, as I stated earlier, is that these gouges are usually associated with another separate anomaly such as a die rotation or doubling. With my ray cents, the variety is that they are 2000 Wide AM Doubled Die reverse. I commented about this to an EBAYER who sold me some 1998 Wide AM&#039;s, and he found doubling on his 1998&#039;s. As a real plus, he also had one of the fifty to 100 known 1999 wide AM&#039;s and he looked, and though it had no ray, we were able to verify doubling in ALL THREE Wide AM types. The 1999 wide AM has four known die pairs, The 2000 has nearly thirty, of which I have some 10-15. I expect that the 1998 Wide AM will have about half that of the 2000 in doubled die form. The doubling is by Lincoln&#039;s statue on the right in the 2000, and on the left in the 1998, of the examples I have found. That 1862 is important, so it is a real keeper. I always felt that the engraver was putting their furtive signature on the die when they left us these beautiful details to examine. After all, it&#039;s their only way of reminding themselves of which dies their tools were applied to: a secret conceit, much like the engravers of olden times did as well.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in