Doubling of Incuse Letters on 1984 Olympiad Commem.???

MrSpud

What is going on with this doubling of the incuse letters on this modern Commemorative??? Is this the good doubling or the bad doubling? I've never heard of any kind of incuse doubling before. The doubling is on more of the letters than are shown, just couldn't get much more into this one picture.

mrcommem

I talk to Anthony Swiatek about this same coin. I thought it was a DDO but too. AW says that it is machine doubling and not a double die of no additional value. If your look closely the mint mark is doubled also which would not happen on a double die from that issue. He says the mint marks were added last so it must be machine doubling.

MrSpud

Thanks. Yes, the mintmark is also doubled which appears shelved like Machine doubling. The wierd thing is that with the incuse letters the look is very different than the shelved look of regular letters that have machine doubling. There is lots of separation of the doulbing with the incuse letters with this machine doubling on this coin.

Conder101

The incuse letters with doubling on this coin confuses a lot of people because you have to take the standard rule that you have learned about notching on the serifs indicating a doubled die and disregard it.

Since the letters on the coin are incuse they are formed by raised letters on the die. As the coin is struck those raised letters are forced into the metal of the coin. But then when the die shifts it is like when a die is receiving a second blow from a raised hub. The first image is still there, with rounded features, and the second image is offset and also with rounded features and seperation or "notching" of the serifs. So a machine doubled coin will have features that we normally associate with a doubled die.

Now lets consider what would happen if the die was actually a doubled die. After the first hubbing the letters that will make the incuse letters on the coin are standing, raised on a flat field. Now when the die is hubbed a second time and the die is offset the part of the hub that created those flat fields around the letters is going to make contact with parts of those RAISED letters and smash them back down flat into the fields.

To give you a better idea of what it would look like, imagine you have some Play-Doh rolled out and you have a board with an L cut out of it. You press the board down on the play-doh and it starts coming up into the L. Take the board away and you see a flat suface with an L. Now put the board back over it but rotated 15 degrees of so and press down again. Those parts of the L that don't match up with the hole will be flattened, and those areas that are a part of the L on the second pressing but which weren't on the first press will be there, but not as high in relief as the parts that went through the hole on both pressings. Now take the board away and what do you see? A flat field with a L on it but not all parts of the L are the same height or relief.

That is the raised letter that will create the incuse letter on the coin if it comes from a doubled die. You will get a single distorted letter with areas of different relief. Not notched serifs.

It can be complicated with words, but if you could see it done it would be crystal clear and easy to understand.

MrSpud

Thanks Conder, good explanation!