What would cause such a weak strike?

Bustquarterhound

The clasp on the obverse and the eye of the eagle on the reverse are barely visible on this high end coin. What might cause this ?

telephoto1

Weak strike and die deterioration. Edit to add that it's also possible that it could be an instance of where they were adjusting die pressure.

Catbert

Here's another example graded AU58 CAC:

BillJones

There was probably an improper gap set up between the dies. The coins were not "squeezed" enough.

This can also be a reflection of worn dies, but I don't think that's the case here.

TimNH

Pardon the newbie question, but how does that coin get a CAC sticker? That's about the worst looking 63 i've seen in any coin.

291fifth

@TimNH said:
Pardon the newbie question, but how does that coin get a CAC sticker? That's about the worst looking 63 i've seen in any coin.

I'm far, far from being a newbie and it is my OPINION that the coin is not MS63 or anything close to it. Obvious wear on the high points.

bsshog40

I'm not sure, but I thought that weak strikes was taken into consideration when grading?

JeffMTampa

Here's a weak strike example:

dsessom

@Bustquarterhound You have to take into consideration the processes that were used at that time. Every step from flattening metal ingots to pressing the coin was all done by hand, so irregularities were far more common than they are today. There are a number of issues that could have resulted in weak strikes and errors - from uneven blanks, to weak dies, to human error. The coin presses at that time were screw presses, which work just like a vise. It would be easy to make a mistake, not apply quite enough pressure, and end up with a weakly "struck" coin. I put struck in quotes because they technically were not struck, but squeezed. Here is the first screw pressed used at the mint, so you can sort of see what I am talking about.

BryceM

@291fifth said:

@TimNH said:
Pardon the newbie question, but how does that coin get a CAC sticker? That's about the worst looking 63 i've seen in any coin.

I'm far, far from being a newbie and it is my OPINION that the coin is not MS63 or anything close to it. Obvious wear on the high points.

It's interesting how people can see things differently. I don't see any wear, just an exceptionally weak strike. In other words, very little detail on the central high points..... but it's as minted. At least 3 professional graders see it that way.

Yeah, maybe it's not the prettiest MS63 around, but some of these old hand-made coins just look like that.

291fifth

It has long been my OPINION that many of the early US coins with mint state grades are actually AU.

Nysoto

Weak strike of that time period could be caused by:

Weak striking pressure
Improperly annealed blank resulting in a hard planchet that does not fill the die cavities
Sunken dies or other die issues
Dies set improperly and out of parallel at strike, or other die setting issues

I have not owned 1818/5 B-1 (op) or B-3. Tompkins says B-3 is "usually somewhat mushy"

This 1818/5 appears to be reverse die stage 4 with vertical crack. The peripheries are fairly well struck obv and rev but centers are weak. It is possible the rev die was starting to sink from the crack. It is also possible during the overdating of the obv die is was not re-hardened correctly and had some sinking.

Here is a classic example of a sunken reverse die on 1794 O.105, T-3:

jmlanzaf

@TimNH said:
Pardon the newbie question, but how does that coin get a CAC sticker? That's about the worst looking 63 i've seen in any coin.

Don't confuse weak strike with wear.

jmlanzaf

@bsshog40 said:
I'm not sure, but I thought that weak strikes was taken into consideration when grading?

I'm sure it was.

jacrispies

More weak strikes on busties: