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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Paul M., post: 2106745, member: 73165&quot;]Metal from the planchets doesn&#039;t flow because it&#039;s molten, so much as because it&#039;s being pushed against the anvil die by the hammer die with enough force that some of the metal has to move into the voids in the dies.&nbsp; In other words, it has to go somewhere, and it&#039;s easier to go where there&#039;s air than where there&#039;s already metal in the die.</p><p><br /></p><p>This is why the metals used for dies have to be harder than the metals being coined.&nbsp; Otherwise, the dies would not work well and would wear out after just a few strikes, leading to weak strikes and lots of cracked dies.&nbsp; (Which, BTW, we do see in a lot of early nickel coinage -- nickel is much harder than gold, silver, and copper; the steel used to make dies wasn&#039;t quite up to snuff for a while.)[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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