How tall is a coin?

guitarwes

What I mean is, how tall is the design from the field to the highest point of any certain coin? I suppose it would have to be measured in hundreths of an inch.

Beside the UHR Saint, which coin has the highest devices? The Walking Liberty Half gets my vote.

-wes

STONE

I think that the Classic Commems use up a lot of the field, but I'm not a CC collector, so I'm probably not right.

richardshipp

I don't know but this one of mine has a pretty high relief...

adamlaneus

The US Mint produced a few very large (5 or 6 inch diameter), very high relief medals. My local B+M has one of them and I think it is priced in the mid 4 figures. Not many were made and it was an award for 'life saving' I believe. The one I saw was remarkable, with a pretty reddish patina. I believe I was told that it was struck 30 times to get the high relief. As I recall, the depth of the devices was about one quarter of an inch or so.

19Lyds

I do not have an answer except that "usually", and there are some "high relief" exceptions, but usually the design elements of the coin do not exceed the height of the rim which enables coins to be stacked. The rim also serves to protect the design elements from premature wear due to lateral "friction".

The alternative question is how low is the "lowest" point on a coin since some coins do have an area which is lower than the fields.

And yes, "hundreths of an inch" could be used however I expect that "thousanths" would be more appropriate.

DNADave

1921 peace dollar must surely be highest after the Saint.

Nysoto

I measured the relief on some similar grade draped bust halves using a depth gauge and a tool to hold the gauge exactly vertical. The measurements showed a slightly higher relief for the earlier obverse master die and hub used in the series. I used a plastic sheet to protect the coins, and measured the thickness of the sheet and subtracted that number from the measurement. The relief on early coins often changed with hub modifications.

lathmach

Measured on the obverse side:
A cent is .005 in
A nickel is .009 in
A dime is .008 in
A (State) Quarter is .003 in (Yes, this is correct. The Quarter has the lowest relief)
Any more questions?

Ray

guitarwes

Looks like you hit on the head lathmach. Thanks.

Strange that the quarter is the lowest.

-wes

Nysoto

cent is .005 in
A nickel is .009 in
A dime is .008 in
A (State) Quarter is .003 in


The early coins had higher relief, at least on the larger coins. The data is at home, but if I remember right the DBH's were around .015 in, with a slight bit of wear on the coins.

ProofArtworkonCircs

In 1972-1973 the mint was increasing the relief on coins. By the 1990's they were reducing it drastically as was Canada.

Frankmason

This one must be pretty tall!!!!

edix2001