Bifurcation on a broadstruck off-center Mercury dime.
CaptHenway
Posts: 32,393 ✭✭✭✭✭
Nice example of bifurcation on an error coin. During a normal strike most of the force reshaping the planchet is expended outwards until the planchet is jammed against the collar, and then the force moving the metal is turned at a 90 degree angle up into the hammer die and down into the anvil die. The inner end of letters or design elements (such as the stars) near the edge of the coin may be the last to fill, though before that point some of the affected lettering may have struck up anyways because of the friction of the expanding planchet against the edges of the letters or design elements.
If there is no collar, or it is a loose, open collar as used on some early U.S. coins, the metal may just keep expanding outwards until the force is expended. The bases of the letters and design elements are weak or non-existent, and you can usually see flow lines from the outward expansion of the metal.
Note how well struck the center of the coin is. Since the coin did not pack the coining chamber tight enough to stop the hammer die where it normally stops, the hammer die traveled a little bit further than normal and finished up striking the highest details of the design.
Not my coin.
TD
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He who knows he has enough is rich.
He who knows he has enough is rich.
@CaptHenway
I have this "broadstruck" 1945 with full bands.
Your explanation helps me understand what occurs during the minting of this error. I have wondered how the centers could be so well struck and the peripherals be so weak.
Why do the tpg Companies list some as broadstuck and some as off center. As I understand it, my coin, is it not both?
I do love the fact that the centers of these coins get a little more pressure to give me a low cost fb in this date. Our host wouldn't give the fb designation on it though.
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Off-center coins have to be missing design elements to be classified as off-center. Your coin has all the design elements showing, thus the designation of broadstruck.
@CaptHenway... Thank you for that clear explanation of issue with the dime. That will help many collectors - it also cleared up a question I had.... Your contributions here are greatly appreciated. Cheers, RickO
Thank you. I try to share.
Informative post on a term not commonly used/ heard.
I have an example of an S-28 large cent in my collection.
i've been wondering this for quite a while and when i search bifurcation in the search at the top, it brought up threads from even my first year here and well before, so i can say i've been wondering this the entire time of my tenure here.
does anyone have a picture of a die, preferably from some older coinage, which is of the the age i pretty much only expect to find some potential bifurcation on. **i'm not totally convinced it is a just a die striking anomaly ** but until i get an opportunity to view many older dies, partially obliterated or not, then it will remain a mystery to me. (i could and probably am just mistaken but you know when you get an itch, sometimes you can't stop till you scratch it)
as odd as it may sound, i saw what was quite similar to longacre doubling on a seated half someone posted very recently and only after looking at a bunch of images was i able to find other examples and saw that it was just from a certain pair(s) of die(s) so wondered about other effects that are made on dies, come about from die use and then striking anomalies having rare occasional similarities given the just-right set of circumstances. when you do anything billions and billions of times, you're gonna get some peculiarities and coincidences.
so i'll just put this post here and hopefully if anyone just comes across one(s), hopefully a spark will light to post image(s) of it/them.