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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Nathan B., post: 4571053, member: 112852&quot;]Thank you, JeffC!&nbsp; You understood me absolutely correctly.&nbsp; I do indeed know <i>what </i>a die clash is, as well as <i>that </i>it is, but I still don&#039;t know <i>how </i>one is possible, even from your very helpful diagram, which doesn&#039;t seem to show the possibility of a die clash.</p><p><br /></p><p>Of course, not all dies are incuse.&nbsp; I know nineteenth to early twentieth century Canadian coins often have convex obverses and concave reverses.&nbsp; Similarly, a book I&#039;m reading on ancient coin collecting, by Wayne Sayles, discusses briefly a particular high relief obverse Greek coin.&nbsp; He says that the metal must flow into what will be the highest points of the obverse, which makes sense on its own.&nbsp; And then he says that the lowest relief area of that particular coin is in the center of the reverse, just as the highest relief area on the obverse is the center of the obverse.&nbsp; He doesn&#039;t quite explicitly connect them, but I guess he must be implying that the two must be related.</p><p><br /></p><p>It seems, then, that while the obverse die is concave, producing a convex surface, the reverse die is--or at least was--actually very often convex, thus producing a concave reverse.&nbsp; I can definitely understand how I die clash could happen then!</p><p><br /></p><p>But I had always assumed that most modern circulating coins (which are anything but high relief) don&#039;t actually have a side that is concave, which means that they don&#039;t have a convex die making them.&nbsp; And I don&#039;t know if every ancient coin has a convex die creating an incuse reverse, either.&nbsp; So unfortunately I still remain fairly confused.</p><p>--</p><p>My thanks to all the others who contributed, and I also welcome others who can set me straight.&nbsp; Many thanks to all!</p><p>--</p><p>UPDATE: JeffC, I think I just got it!&nbsp; (Thanks to your diagram.)&nbsp; It&#039;s because, I&#039;m guessing, the metal flows from the force of the blow where the two dies meet (as per Gronnh20).[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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