dies, striking, progression of luster

1907Quarter

Having the opportunity to see quite a bit of freshly minted state quarters and seeing a random sampling of coins having been minted at one of many possible die states I'm wondering what the natural progression of luster is from early to late die state. Are coins that are minted on freshly polished dies have more brilliant mirrored effects, then gradually picking up a frosted luster(flow-line cartwheel) effect and finally a less than brilliant MS63 type luster? Is this the progression of a single die?

1907Quarter

ttt

coppercoins

Usually, yes.

Many dies in earlier die state have a lack of cartwheel because the crossed metallic particles on the surface of the die haven't been pushed outward to cause the flow lines. As the flow lines develop, so does the cartwheel. In very late die state, the design becomes mushy because of this, and even with sharply struck examples, the design appears tired and worn out. Often people mistake this loss of detail for soft strike and grade accordingly.

The hub also comes into play here. If the hub is worn out, some cartwheel effect will transfer to the die, because hubs wear much like dies, only the effect is usually much less pronounced because we are talking about creating a few dozen dies versus hundreds of thousands of coins, and the action of a hub is pressing versus the pounding dies receive when striking coins. Like with copy machines, the copy (die) can only be as good as the original (hub), most of the time slightly worse. Any design imperfections or loss of detail on the hub transfers directly to the die.