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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;davidh, post: 1242609, member: 15062&quot;]The main reason that the dies were cracking was because of the newness on minting coins in nickel, which is much harder that the copper, silver and gold used up to that point.&nbsp; It took a while before they were able to get the die hardness and required pressure right which is why many of the first ones appeared weakly struck.&nbsp; One early attempt to solve the problem was to remove the rays, not because they were causing die cracking, but because it was felt that pushing that additional metal into the coin would result in an overall improvement in the strike, especially in the shield lines on the obverse.</p><p><br /></p><p>Yes, I know the three cent nickels started a year earlier but they had the same problems with weak strike and cracked dies.&nbsp; However, everything being equal, it&#039;s a bit easier to strike a smaller coin than a bigger.&nbsp; The five cent is about 2.5 times more massive than the three cent.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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