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Message:: [QUOTE="John Anthony, post: 1641677, member: 42773"]I think you're right. I'm looking through my coins from the early 90s and there's a gradual progression of flattening-out the devices. By 1993, the design is completely low-relief. I don't know if the changes had anything to do with creating a coin that would wear less during circulation though - perhaps. I do know that the mint had consistent problems with the copper-nickel clad planchets striking properly, throughout the 70s and 80s. You find a lot of weakly-struck coins during those decades, simply because nickel is such a hard metal. In particular, the Philadelphia mint coins are struck weaker than the Denver mint coins, especially in certain years. A well-struck 71-P, for instance, is both rare and highly desirable. Perhaps Denver just had higher tonnage presses. So the lower-relief design is probably an effort at quality control more than anything, regardless of the aesthetics - you certainly get much crisper coins coming off the presses starting in the 90s.[/QUOTE]