Man, I should have known this Triplet 10x would cause trouble. But methinks this is the good kind of trouble, because it gets you thinking about things. Things that are troubling to a relatively inexperienced/unlearned collector. To get to the point, I was looking at some nice cents today, '68-'74, all S. I noticed that from '71 to '74, the S was rather plump. I believe the correct term is filled. My '68-'70S are clear. I don't understand what they must have done differently to get that effect, or WHY. I did see in a thread that was recently posted that it might have something to do with how firmly they punch the planchet, but that doesn't make much sense to me either...I thought it was the same strength punch each time. So the question is, HOW and WHY would the mint do this?
For one thing the people that work at the Mint were and still are worried about their jobs. Probably soon outsourced to China or Mexico. So naturally with shaking hands our coins are getting a bit blobbish. Then too in the 70's there were a lot of parties and with excessive Martini's at these the Mint workers just couldn't do an accurate job. Excess metal was also a thing back then so they stuffed some inside numbers and letters. All of the above proves I have no idea. I suggest you try www.coppercoins.com The guy on that web site knows a lot about those.
The punches used to punch the mint mark into the dies suffer the same problem that the dies do - they wear out. And when a punch wears out it creates filled, indistinct images onto the die. Then the dies make the same filled, indistinct images on the coin. Just that simple.
That would explain both the filled S and the clear S with tiny raised parts in between the curves. Thanks GD!
Also a rocking motion is needed. One thing that has not been mentioned yet is that a rocking type of motion is needed to set the mintmark. I think in Margolis and Wexler's books they describe that because the die is slightly convex (I think that's the right word), (rounded) and tapered slightly they must not only strike the mintmark punch they must use a rocking motion as they hit the punch to adequately set the mintmark properly. As I understand it if the punch was struck just flat out the tops and bottoms of the minmark would be rather weak only the center would be seated properly. Remember not only this but they are working in a negative image hitting a small metal rod (die) , slightly cone shaped with a smaller rod (the punch itself) and they did this each week to hundreds if not thousands of dies. It is no wonder their were re-punched, filled, flat, fat, thin, blobs, wide, narrow and everything else in the book as the finished product die with mintmark. Hint, the Wexler files has well over 250 different RPM's for 1960-D Lincoln cents. It's really amazing there were not many more blunders than there were. Ben Peters "getting old is not all it's cracked up to be"
There were and probably still are millions of varieties of RPM's out there. However remember until only recently people have been made aware of mint errors. Not to long ago even double died coins were just dismissed as garbage. When I was a kid if someone had a coin with a blank back, offset, doubled, or a lot of mint marks all over the place, no one cared. When I was a kid we didn't even know what a mint mark ment. Every day now new types of mint errors are being discussed and publicized.
Carl please use the correct terminology. Carl, for the sake of correct info. please do not use the phrase double died or dyed - the only correct phrase is doubled die - that's it that's all there is we owe that to the new people - no serious die variety expert will use just the phrase double die ever - it is not correct - also these are not really errors they are varieties but I'll let that one go as there is some debate on that one however there is no debate regarding the term doubled die. You are right about many years ago people did not save this stuff until really starting in the 1960's and not until the last 15 years has it become the norm. We know so much more about the minting process than we ever did before thanks to Wexler, Potter, Crawford, Wiles, Margolis, Weinburg and so many other - they really gave us a gift with this knowledge> Thanks, Ben Peters
