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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;DCH, post: 909227, member: 8072&quot;]I suspect these may be the marks from a hardness test.&nbsp; Monitoring the hardness of the die metal would allow the mint to replace the die before it broke or re-anneal it to extend its life.</p><p><br /></p><p>With a mintage of 500k, I&#039;d guess there would be at minimum 3 die sets as dies for larger coins have a much shorter life than smaller coins.&nbsp; I found some die life figures online: 1971 US half dollar 150k strikes per die, dollar 100k strikes, cent 1,000k strikes per die.</p><p><br /></p><p>The dots are in a recessed area which would be a high spot on the die.&nbsp; It&#039;s possible that the marks would be polished off the die, then when retested the marks would be in a slightly different location.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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