Does a regular relief coin's rims help protect it from slide marks?

fivecents

If a regular relief coin in uncirculated condition was laid flat on a sheet of glass and repetely rubbed back and forth would the rims protect the devices from friction damage?

cladking

There's no such thing as regular relief and regular sized rims are even more elusive. These
will vary primarily by type and secondarily by date but there will be significant individual variation
even in the same date and mint. The blanks can vary slightly in size as wear on the dies? increase.
The upsetting mill will roll up the outside of the planchet to slightly different sizes and the orienta-
tion of the blank going into the mill can determine which side of the planchet gets more metal.

Then it really starts getting complicated as these variable planchets are fed between dies which
are rarely in perfect alignment with different amounts of wear and varying strike pressure.

Most coins are intended to be made so that they stack on their rims to facilitate counting and
handling. Some coins will have well struck rims which do a good job of protecting the detail
from touching a flat surface but others like 1984-P quarters "lead with their chins".