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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;SuperDave, post: 2527975, member: 1892&quot;]That&#039;s because it&#039;s more difficult to believe it&#039;s PMD than it is as-struck. <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>My initial impression is of two different materials being involved here. On the steps, whatever got stuck there was of a hardness near that of, or exceeding, nickel - that&#039;s the only way sharp edges could appear. The nickel would &quot;round&quot; the edges of contact for anything softer than it. </p><p><br /></p><p>I contemplated the possibility of lamination rather than strikethrough, and decided not because of the sizable depth (another point in favor of something really hard) compared to the surface size - laminations are generally broader and thinner.</p><p><br /></p><p>The lower piece could have been wire, could have been string, could have been softer metal which the nickel kind of forced into shape during the strike. Keep in mind, steel has to be specially hardened to be harder than nickel <b>at all</b> - nickel is harder than soft steel. That&#039;s one reason why the Mint had such difficulty learning to strike nickel - their die steel was very little harder than the planchet at the time. The Bessemer Process (and therefore &quot;modern&quot; steel) was less than ten years old at the time the Mint started striking 3CN&#039;s.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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