Ok, I'm not the sharpest coin in the set but I need someone to explain my dilemma. I am looking at this coin http://www.ebay.com/itm/400851860889?_trksid=p2060778.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT The description by the seller says 'minted Philadelphia' an obvious mistake but understandable, Which brings me to the dilemma. If a coin has a 'D' mint but an OMM 'S' how did the coin get from Denver to the S.F mint to be repunched. Or does each mint location have other mints dies also? Help make me a smarter idiot by explaining this. And that Lincoln cent. Whatta' ya' think.
As a rule, when the branch mint receives their quota of dies, they will stamp them with the appropriate mintmark. Every once in a while, it happens that a particular branch mint will run short of dies and have to borrow some from one of the other branches. Before stamping the die with the correct mintmark, they are supposed to polish out the previous mintmark. This isn't always done perfectly and the underlying mintmark may still show through. Chris
At that time the Philadelphia mint made all the dies, so they would have had both mint mark punches lying around.
Chris, It's always been my understanding that at the time(and up until about 1997 or so) the Philadelphia mint made all the dies which included the punching of the mint mark. Did the branch mints punch their own dies? Jody
I was always under the impression that the individual branch mints punched their own dies. Wrong on my part?
And I thought the die punch fairy came in at night when they arrived in their respective cities. Philadelphia just didnt get a visit for a bit because it was dirty.
I don't know Green. You and Chris may be right. The closest thing to anything definitive in the literature that I can find is a statement by John Wexler in his book, "The Comprehensive Guide to Lincoln Memorial Cent Repunched Mint Mark Varieties: 1959." In it he says about OMMs, "A technician in Philadelphia may have used a wrong punch for a working die that was intended for a certain Branch mint and after realizing the mistake, he/she changed the letter punch."
At one time all of the branch mints punched their own mint mark into the coin, but now the Philly mint includes them with their die perpetration. I forget what year it was, but I want to say late sixties somewhere is when the switch took place.
And to the best of my knowledge, the branch mints did not even have a punch for the mintmarks. Just look at http://lincolncentresource.com/San_Fransisco_Mintmark_Styles.html. There is a single punch used for ALL S mintmarks from 1917 through 1941 (except for 1928) and several other extended time frames. It would have been impracticable to ship that punch back and forth to San Francisco.
Well, maybe I wasn't 100% accurate. I was thinking mainly in terms of 19th century coinage. However, this could also apply to 20th century coinage. Suppose that dies were shipped to each branch mint from Philly with their designated mintmarks already stamped, and the Denver Mint ran out and borrowed extras from San Francisco. Chris
Chris, You may very well be right. I honestly don't know, and I'm searching to see if anyone has something definitive about the subject. I've already had someone who is a renowned expert about the minting process tell me that they didn't know for sure. Good discussion topic. Jody
I am not that familiar with the 19th century coin practices, but in the 20 century, they would have to send the die back to Philly to be repunched and then sent to Denver. Now that could have happened.
Roger Burdette, aka RWB, would probably know. I can't recall if he mentioned anything about it in his book, From Mine to Mint. I guess I'll have to read it again. Chris
I lack sufficient knowledge of each facility's specific capabilities and procedures but, intimately understanding metalworking process and human nature, the following makes the most sense to me: To minimize cost of mint facilities, one would want to do all heat-treatment (both annealing and hardening) at a single location - where the dies were manufactured. To obtain the longest life from dies, one would want to punch the mintmark into the die before hardening. Otherwise, most dies would end up cracking from pre-stress at the mintmark to the rim in far fewer strikes than if punched while annealed, and hardened afterward. If I were the Mint director, I would have all coining dies fully prepared, including punching of mintmarks and subsequent hardening, at the Philadelphia Mint before delivery to the branch mints for production.
All dies were made and received their mintmark at Philadelphia until 1997. Since 1990 all the mintmarks have been in the master hub. Since 1997 Denver has made their own dies using a master hub provided from Philadelphia. Philadelphia still creates the dies for S and W issues. Typically the way an overmintmark would be created would be when Philadelphia found they had created more dies for a mint that that int needed they would be repunched with the other mints mark. This would be before the dies were hardened. There are a few exceptions. After the CC assay office closed the old Morgan reverse dies still on hand were returned to Philadelphia where they were annealed and repunched with O mintmarks. Thus the 1900 O/CC dollars. And some 1954 S nickel reverses were probably returned and repunched to create the 1955 D/S nickels. The branch mints did not have mintmarks punches. There is correspondence in the archives from the mints reporting times when they received dies lacking mintmarks requesting replacements and shipping the unmarked dies back. If they had had punches all of their dies would have been umarked and they would have simply added the mintmarks themselves. There would be no need for the correspondences. There are also examples where apparently the mint could not wait for replacements and proceeded to crudely cut a mintmark into the die and use it. Examples being the 1854 huge O quarter and most famously the 1870 S three dollar gold piece.
