I've recently acquired an 1821 Zacatecas 8 Reales. It's a common variety, but the reverse had a few features that pointed to re-worked dies (fleur-de-lis, part of dentils). After a closer examination, I noticed doubling in front of Fernando's face. "Cool", I thought to myself, "strike doubling"... But if you look at the images I provided, you'll notice 3 raised lines crossing the doubled area (die scratches?). But they are on top of the strike doubling. But since strike doubling happens in the final stages of the strike - how is it possible? Can anyone envision a mechanism that places a gouge through a strike double? Thoughts anyone? ~Roman
I'm not really sure what it is you are calling strike doubling, do you mean the coin was struck twice or do you mean the term in the more modern sense as in mechanical doubling ? Either way, I don't think that's what it is in this case, I think it's exactly what you said - re-worked dies. What you are thinking is doubling, I think is just the outline of where the die was recarved to sharpen the details so that the die could be used some more. It was rather common for them to do that during this time period as the making of the dies was rather expensive and they tried to save whatever and however they could. The recarving would also explain the raised metal over the original design lines - the carver slipped and made a small gouge. So when a coin was struck there was raised metal there. Neat coin :thumb:
