This has nothing to do with the OP's question, but in here you can find a link to an article I wrote about how the Treasury went after silver coins in circulation in the 1960's.
And as noted in the thread I did not use or like the word "swindle."
Numismatist. 50 year member ANA. Winner of four ANA Heath Literary Awards; three Wayte and Olga Raymond Literary Awards; Numismatist of the Year Award 2009, and Lifetime Achievement Award 2020. Winner numerous NLG Literary Awards.
Collectors should sit down with a coin and flip it obverse to reverse several times. A Flying Eagle Cent would be a good place to start. That design had strike issues. The high points on the wreath in the reverse was opposite the head and tail of the Eagle on the obverse. When the coin was struck, there was sometimes not enough metal flow on both sides to bring up all of the design detail. This was especially true for tail of the eagle. There was a pattern made with a smaller eagle that tried to fix that. In the end that idea was not adopted, and the design was replaced with the Indian Cent.
Some collectors complain that designs should have more detail, but the designers and die makers know that some things are not practical for a mass produced item like a made for circulation coin. Medals, which can be struck multiple times, are a different story. The mintages for those pieces are almost always much lower and greater care can be taken in making them.
A historic example was the battle between Augustus St. Gaudens and Charles Barber. St. Gaudens, and the people who worked him, were great artists, but they lacked knowledge about designing and making dies for high mintage coins. One could say that Barber was not a great artist, but he knew how to make coin dies very well. It is interesting to note that the designs for the $10 Indian and $20 St. Gaudens coins were conceived by the St. Gaudens team, but the final dies were executed by Barber.
Retired dealer and avid collector of U.S. type coins, 19th century presidential campaign medalets and selected medals. In recent years I have been working on a set of British coins - at least one coin from each king or queen who issued pieces that are collectible. I am also collecting at least one coin for each Roman emperor from Julius Caesar to ... ?
The Jefferson nickel has the large raised head running vertically on the obverse and the raised building Monticello running horizontally on the reverse. Where they intersect through the coin you have the steps, which tend to be weak because of the demand for metal into both the obverse and the reverse die.
Numismatist. 50 year member ANA. Winner of four ANA Heath Literary Awards; three Wayte and Olga Raymond Literary Awards; Numismatist of the Year Award 2009, and Lifetime Achievement Award 2020. Winner numerous NLG Literary Awards.
Answers
This has nothing to do with the OP's question, but in here you can find a link to an article I wrote about how the Treasury went after silver coins in circulation in the 1960's.
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/1038644/coin-week-the-great-u-s-mint-silver-coin-swindle
And as noted in the thread I did not use or like the word "swindle."
Collectors should sit down with a coin and flip it obverse to reverse several times. A Flying Eagle Cent would be a good place to start. That design had strike issues. The high points on the wreath in the reverse was opposite the head and tail of the Eagle on the obverse. When the coin was struck, there was sometimes not enough metal flow on both sides to bring up all of the design detail. This was especially true for tail of the eagle. There was a pattern made with a smaller eagle that tried to fix that. In the end that idea was not adopted, and the design was replaced with the Indian Cent.
Some collectors complain that designs should have more detail, but the designers and die makers know that some things are not practical for a mass produced item like a made for circulation coin. Medals, which can be struck multiple times, are a different story. The mintages for those pieces are almost always much lower and greater care can be taken in making them.
A historic example was the battle between Augustus St. Gaudens and Charles Barber. St. Gaudens, and the people who worked him, were great artists, but they lacked knowledge about designing and making dies for high mintage coins. One could say that Barber was not a great artist, but he knew how to make coin dies very well. It is interesting to note that the designs for the $10 Indian and $20 St. Gaudens coins were conceived by the St. Gaudens team, but the final dies were executed by Barber.
The Jefferson nickel has the large raised head running vertically on the obverse and the raised building Monticello running horizontally on the reverse. Where they intersect through the coin you have the steps, which tend to be weak because of the demand for metal into both the obverse and the reverse die.