I purchased this last week at the Gettysburg show. I will repost it along with other purchases in another thread at a later date. This is a rare and unusual error so I thought it might be fun to take guesses at the type error it is. We do see a lot of error coins as I'm sure you are well aware of. Pictures were difficult due to the type of error, lighting issues and the case the coin is in. They are however, a fairly good likeness of the coin itself. Yes, the reverse is a bit blurry but it's close to the actual coin.
Contrary to what most likely think, and possibly even contrary to what the holder says, I believe this is a strike through grease. Why would one make such a claim, you might ask? Because the surfaces of the planchet are flat and parallel before strike. Since the dies are square to the planchet when they leave an impression on the coin, ALL of the letters in the motto "IN GOD WE TRUST" should have been impressed to nearly the same depth by the obverse die, yet it appears they were not. Some change in depth can be attributed to the distance the letters are from the center of the coin, but they should disappear more graduially than they appear to. Now, if all letters in the motto are impressed on the coin, and it just doesn't appear that way in the photo, I take back everything I wrote. Let's see what the holder says . . . and let's see better photos.
I take it back . . . I found a few sets of photos of die trials of Washington quarters, and one of them shows the motto disappearing just like the on the coin above. I stand corrected . . . ten lashes for that guy . . . don't worry, I'll go easy on myself.
Admitting a mistake on cointalk is about as common as a politician embracing intellectual honesty. Kudos to you, sir.
Thank you for you honesty. Admitting when we are wrong is hard to do. Not admitting when we make a mistake is making another mistake.
Yes the planchet faces are parallel, and the dies are square to the planchet, but the die faces are NOT flat. They are slightly convex. So before the strike the letters of the motto close to the center of the die are closer to the planchet than those closer to the rim.
All dies I have seen are largely flat-faced, and only depart from that plane near the very edge of the dies. I personally am convinced that the letters fade further from the center of the coin, not because of concavity of the dies, but because when struck the material nearer the center of the coin extrudes radially toward the edges, as is evident from flow lines left by die erosion over many strikes. Since the surface area of the coin increases as the square of the radius, it takes less material to fill letters near the center than letters further from the center.
Here is the best photo I can get of this coin. This type of error is known as a Die Adjustment Strike. They are commonly called Die Trails. This error occurs when a coin is struck from the press with very little pressure. When the press is being set up or adjusted extremely weak strikes occur as the strike pressure reaches its optimum level. If the pressure is too strong the Die can break. If the pressure is not strong enough details are to weak on the coin. The machine is adjusted to make all details to be on the coin are present. Die Trial coins are destroyed after being struck during this adjustment or set up process. There are rarely found in circulation and are considered rare. If the coin has normal reeding it is struck through grease. If the reeding is weak it is probably a Die Adjustment Strike. Photos, especially while in a slab, are impossible for me to capture. The reeding is weak but present. There is a small scrape on the neck but this is from a planchet flaw. This would have been removed if the pressure was set correctly but it remained as the pressure was to weak. The outside edges of the coins surface are barely present. In hand you can just barely see the top of LIBERTY and the very bottom on 196. With a 10x the last digit appears to be a 4. All the motto shows is D WE ST for IN GOD WE TRUST. No hairlines show on Washington and the ribbon is weak. His facial bones are flat. The reverse is the same with less than the lower half of QUARTER DOLLAR showing. Only E and U show in the motto over the eagle. All details on the eagle are washed out along with the olive branch but the right side is a little bit stronger than the left side. A weak rim is present. Due to the lack of details this is one of the earlier Die Adjustments. As the pressure is increased the details become stronger. I did not have this type of error so as soon as I saw it, it was a matter of pricing. The seller and I are both pleased with the price. This is also my first NGC slab as I don't like the white. I fee it detracts from the coin. It's great looking in my hand and now it's part of The Collecting Nut collection.
The curvature is not much. From some rough calculations the figure I get is that die face would be about .12 mm higher in the center of the die face or about 5 thousandths of an inch. (If the die face was smooth)
