I bought 2 of this Order of Malta proof set. The silver 9 Tari in both sets has nice toning but upon closer look, the field are hairlines to the max...or could it be hairlines on the planchet before strike? The crevices in the design that do not have the frosty surfaces have the same lines. It's hard to think that a wipe post strike would get such perfect hairlines all the way up to the devices edges but not up and over.
These areas specifically should have frosting but don't and have hairlines. I see some wipe marks going across the cross in one area, so it probably was wiped post strike, but the rest of the field on the crest side has so many lines in the fields its hard to believe that there would not be lines acoss the devices.
My experience is that they all display these lines - I believe that the planchets were buffed pre-strike.
It is the weirdest thing. I thought die polish lines or hairlines. But under high power magnification they are neither raised or incuse. I think @norantyki has it right, the lines are from polishing or wiping the planchet then the die strikes them into the metal but the scratches are flatten and the lines are in the surface and not on top of the fields. The devices filling with metal flow have distorted the metal enough that the lines mostly disappear.
Looks like the vast majority of them are die polish lines to me, with just a few hairlines scattered about here and there.
Here are my thoughts on hairlines planchets before strike. As I mentioned above, I have 2 of the sets. There were 10,000 of these made. Would that be 1 set of dies? I think I see a common die marker between the 2 coins. However, the lines on one coin are east to west and on the other southeast to northwest. If they were die polish lines they would be in the same direction and the same pattern on all coins relative to the shield from the same die. If on the planchet before strike they would be different both in orientation and patterns between coins. I think the during the preparation of the planchets they polish them before striking. Circled and the square in red are possible die markers between coins indicating the same die struck both coins.
From what I understand (and I am more than willing to be corrected should someone know otherwise), these were struck at Rome using a single set of dies. It was not uncommon practice to polish planchets for proof strikes - the RM (for instance) used to do this until the mid-20th century.
Yes. But if the die was polished and then polished again after a number of strikes (which is fairly common with Proofs), the orientation of the die polish lines would change. Could the planchets have been polished as well ? Sure, that's fairly common too. But, because Proofs are struck at high pressures, and struck more than once, polish lines on planchets are as a general rule obliterated during the strike. So, while it's not a certainty I simply think it more likely that the dies were polished more than once.
@Razz IMO these parallel lines are not hairlines induced post strike, but rather from polishing the Dies; the Mint of the Sovereign Order of Malta (Zecca del Sovrano Militare Ordine di Malta) started operation in 1964, so perhaps their technique, or inspection criteria, for polishing Dies for proof coinage were not as sophisticated or exacting in the issue year of 1967. .
