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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;SuperDave, post: 2305821, member: 1892&quot;]Well, let&#039;s think about the striking process for a moment. </p><p><br /></p><p>An original planchet is slightly thicker than the &quot;field-to-field&quot; thickness of the final coin, so there&#039;s spare metal to fill the devices which stand off of the fields. When the coin is struck, this metal starts filling the nearest places first, of course. Depending on the pressure and gap between dies settings, the very deepest parts of the die sometimes don&#039;t successfully fill. It is the goal of the Mint to cut that as close as possible because die life is then extended, which is why so many issues can be found with weak strikes on occasion. This could be for as simple a cause as the guy running the shift turned the pressure down so his shift would go easier.</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp;But either way, the &quot;lower&quot; devices - those closest to the plane of the fields - fill completely before metal even reaches the &quot;highest&quot; points (deepest in the die). This is why weak strikes are perfect indicators of where to find the very deepest parts of the die.</p><p><br /></p><p>Those are also the places where your fingers, or anything causing friction on a coin, <b>usually</b> touch first. But <b>not always</b> - you don&#039;t always hold a coin by the center - and your fingers/friction <i>don&#039;t just touch those parts</i>. Depends on what touched the coin and what the coin was doing when it got touched - a graze by something smaller than the coin doesn&#039;t have to hit the high points exclusively, or at all. Long before the highest points start showing genuine loss of detail from wear, other parts of the coin will have the luster/original finish worn off (even if no detail is lost yet). You can see those places, in-hand, and it&#039;s why you don&#039;t need to really care about loss of detail from a weak strike. It&#039;s very, very difficult to illustrate (and see) with digital imaging, which is why threads like this contain so much discussion, but not hard at all to see in-hand once you know what you&#039;re looking for.</p><p><br /></p><p>I can tell the difference between weak strike and wear in hand, usually, because the actual surface finish differs even if the microscopic detail doesn&#039;t.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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