This may or may not have already been asked in a previous thread, but if such a thread exists, it was up a good bit ago. But maybe it wasn't = ) There are some coins I look at and wonder whether it was weakly struck or if it has been worn, and I often can't arrive at a conclusion. I know that some coins are notorious for having a weak strike (cough PEACE cough), and that it's a natural thing that happens when the die has been used past its prime/needs to be cleaned (I think that's right). I can't help but wonder if there are any examples you can think of where a coin was undergraded or underappreciated because it was thought to be worn, instead of a having weak strike? I find it hard to believe I'm the only one that's having difficult in this area...:rolling: Thanks! -Peter
Here's an example! This Jefferson has no marks in the fields, but the details aren't very, er, detailed.
Peter, A weak strike and worn dies are two different animals. A weak strike, as the name implies, occurs when not enough force (or pressure) is used to strike the coin resulting in weak details. The dies may have full details but the details are not brought up on the coin due to the weak strike. On the other hand a worn die does not have the details and cannot produce a coin with full details no matter how much force (or pressure) is used to strike the coin.
Jefferson nickels are notorious for not being well struck. That one you have, is about as good as it gets. Typically, MS66 is as high as they go. Take a look at this one, none graded higher. Now compare that one to your coin and tell me what you see.
wow, I didn't realize that...I'd never heard anyone complain about the poor strike on Jeffersons. Thanks for the info, Hobo! That's really good to know.
Hi Peter! You are NOT wrong. It is one of the classic challenges of grading, and quite frankly one that even the experts disagree on.
p.s. one of the ways I tell the difference between a weak strike and wear is that wear always occurs on the hight points of the coin first, and weakness of strike can occur anywhere. It gets really challenging when the area of weakness is on the high points, or the coin is a lower grade than VF (i.e. the entire coin is worn).
An uncirculated coin with a weak strike should still have full luster. Wear will show as breaks in the luster.
If the metal doesn't fill the die then you might see the raw planchet at those high points. This can be confused with wear on the high points Very best regards, Collect89
Here's a question for you guys. Do war nickels generally have better strikes? The reason I ask is the coin has a fair amount of silver content and silver is pretty soft. So, I was wondering if that translated into better strikes.
Nickel is murder for dies. We would not even be using it if congressional lobbyists, who had friends and were working for their rich mining operators, had not found a use for it and forced it on the mint - (ironically this is exactly what happened when the silver mining operations struck it rich). They had to force production of silver dollars so the government could subsidize a use, (and value) for the metal. It is not very well know but nobody, I mean nobody in 1880 walked around with silver dollars in their pocket. Nickel's nickname is "the devils metal" and for good reason. That plus during the period from about 1900 to 1950 the nickel was the work horse coin of it's day same as the quarter or even dollar is today. It would by a ride, a coke, a sandwich and many daily expenses were served by spending a nickel. The hardness of the metal, the overuse of dies and increased production numbers caused the nickel to be one of the worst struck U.S. coins ever. Some silver nickels were indeed stuck some better but the war time effort of overproduction affected it also with many poor strikes. If you will notice modern nickel are superbly struck but the intire relief has been lowered. That plus much better die steel has increased the nickels strike but it remains a poor coining material for so many reasons mentioned above. Ben Peters
Hello CamaroDMD,I don't know the nuances of striking war nickels. However, it is really cool to read about the difficulty striking Nickel at the branch mints in December of 1912. It was the first time they had ever struck Nickel and they had to experiment with re-positioning their dies, speed, force, etc. They had trouble getting the 1912 product out the door. Of course, they had to learn quickly from their crash course because they were expected to strike the 1913 Buffalo Nickel in January.Very best regards,Collect89
