Are there telltale signs to determine if a medal has been struck versus cast?

Longacre

I was looking at the new Stack's catalog, and the medals look really great. I see that some medals are described as "struck" and others are described as "cast". For someone who does not know much about medals, are there telltale signs to determine if a medal was struck versus cast? Personally, I find it fairly easy to determine if a coin is a cast counterfeit, simply because I have a very good idea of what a struck coin looks like. However, for medals that is a different story for me. Any thoughts? Does it depend on the size of the medal (i.e., over a certain diameter, it is not possible to strike it and by default it must be cast)?

BAJJERFAN

Would cast items have a different ring to them after contact with another object. I'd bet if you could see below the surface you might find the cast objects have a grainier more crystalline appearance to them.

Shamika

Look for a seam on the edge of the medal.

I would also carefully examine the edge of devices as they enter the background field. If they are razor sharp, this is a strong indication that the medal is struck.

Finally, I would look at the smoothness of the fields. Rough fields are an indication of a casting assuming the designer did not intend them to appear that way.

ziggy29

Struck pieces tend to have a "bell like" tonal quality when struck, and cast pieces don't. Also, finer details on struck pieces tend to be more visible than on cast copies, especially if the cast copies were made from transfer dies. Cast specimens may also have dull, grainy surfaces compared to a struck piece.

pb2y

Also look for unusual tool marks caused by an attempt to clean-up the mold.

ipmman

If you hunt through old copies of the MCA Advisory at their web site, D. Wayne Johnson did a great article on how to tell the differences.

You might also want to check out the April 2007 article in the Numismatist on Indian Peace medals, there is a section in there about telling cast medals from struck ones. I can't recall who wrote that one.

Pistareen

Not to poke fun at anyone, as I used to often use the struck-medals-ring-cast-medals-thunk test myself.

SOMETIMES cast medals thunk, but tests that work sometimes are not very good tests.

Ask yourself this -- how do they make bells? They cast them!

That stated, a struck medal will have a different sonority than a cast medal of the same composition and diameter. It'll, well, ring like a bell

The cast v. struck question is a lot like grading -- it's easy as long as you have 20 years of experience. 90% of the time a cast medal will look rough, show gaps, show a seam or tell-tale file marks on the edge, or thunk when rung. It's the 10% of the time you have to worry about though.

A cast medal will typically be microscopically smaller in diameter than its model, so if a medal exists both struck and cast, the struck piece will be bigger. As medal cools, it contracts. A struck piece does not endure this process. Of course, the percentage of shrinkage is often tiny.

Ipmman knows my story with a very famous medal in an institution that was listed as being struck for years until I saw it and thought "this thing just seems cast to me." As it turns out, others have agreed -- though I was not 100% certain at the time . Just mostly certain.

Now if you want to get really technical, there are medals that are struck on cast planchets. A lot of experts still can't pick them out -- John Ford condemned some medals that are proveably struck on cast planchets yet he insisted they were cast fakes. Oops.

keets

i suspect that many of the "opinions" of the cataloguer aren't opinions at all but are "facts" gleaned from some source such as a Mint report or records from the issuer where possible. from that standpoint, these aren't guesses or anything like that, but are in fact give the origin of the medals as known.

just my hunch and some of the items are wonderful.

ipmman

I ditto Pistareen's point that experience really helps. Once you've poured through thousands of medals, and wasted a few bucks on cast fakes here and there, you can more easily tell the difference.

The ring test rings true only if you know the tone you should be hearing. A good ear is developed by experience the same way a good eye is.

Cast medals will ring, there is no question about it.

When you've handled as many medals as Pistareen, you can tell the difference by smell. Plus, it can run in the genes.