"Blurry" 1926-d cent: how does this happen??
coachbedford
Posts: 189
I have a 1926-D Lincoln Cent-- just Good condition or so-- but much of the legend/inscriptions/numbers are somewhat to very blurry. The Lincoln bust just slightly so. But this "blurring" causes the letters (for example, "ONE CENT" and "United States of America") to be thick, even slightly askew. How does this happen? Did this cent get double-punched at the mint? Or can someone achieve this affect by hitting the coin with a hammer? On the obverse I do see what looks like a couple of semi-circular indentions, like another coin was wacked onto the surface of it.
Was hoping to see if someone knows how this effect is achieved right off the bat-- if not, I could try and scan it.
Was hoping to see if someone knows how this effect is achieved right off the bat-- if not, I could try and scan it.
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Perhaps the engraving department changed the die steel somewhere in the 20's and the new steel required a slightly different quenching process that the branch mints never mastered. I don't know. This is just an educated guess.
TD
There are some nice examples out there. I have a couple of '26-Ds that are pretty decent. But the good stuff doesn't change hands often. Here's a 63 and 64.
Lance.
Lance, those are 2 very nice examples for that date, I prefer the 63 over the 64.
<< <i>Late die stage as your 26-D was struck by very tired dies. >>
Agree---very worn dies not unlike the 1922 Plain.
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<< <i>The dies were not heat treated properly. The annealing, quenching, and tempering processes must be optimised to produce dies that standup to repeated cycles without either shattering or eroding prematurely. It's not uncommon to see this date with "blurry" details. Take a look at 1926-S Lincolns. You'll see the same thing. >>
That's what I said. The question is, why did the Denver and San Francisco Mints both lose the knack of doing this correctly after doing it just fine up through 1920?
A change in personnel could explain it, if the new people were not trained properly, but it is quite a coincidence that both branch mints went bad at the same time.
Here's an idle thought.....the branch mint dies were worst when the branch mints were busiest making silver dollars, 1922-27. Perhaps the larger dollar dies needed to be tempered differently somehow than the smaller dies, but in the interests of "efficiency" they were all done the same way and/or together? Just speculation on my part.
TD
I did eventually buy an OGH 25-d in 65RD from Ira Stein for about $5K. Well struck for the date, but still mushy overall.
Your Good may only really have the wear of a VF, but is just struck up so poorly that you can't tell.
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<< <i>Here's an idle thought.....the branch mint dies were worst when the branch mints were busiest making silver dollars, 1922-27. Perhaps the larger dollar dies needed to be tempered differently somehow than the smaller dies, but in the interests of "efficiency" they were all done the same way and/or together? Just speculation on my part. >>
Without looking into correspondence that doubtless a former member here has that corroborates this, a general breakdown of the die preparation process during the Pittman Act coinage years seems a reasonable explanation for this. A strange thing happens if you include 1921, however. While the 1921-S Morgan dollars often exhibit the same nasty die erosion as is seen on other 1920's branch mint coinage, 1921-D dollars are typically rather sharp and can even be found with PL surfaces if you're patient. What did these dies in seems to be die breaks, so it would seem that their die preparation process was quite different than San Francisco's. Had the Morgan dollar been continued into 1922 or had Denver struck a 1921 cent, it would be easy to see the effects of changes in their die prep, but since there is no type that spanned both 1921 and 1922 in Denver, we can't easily see this. Trying to assess differences in accumulation of die wear by comparing 1921-D Morgans to 1922-D Peace dollars isn't easy.
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Or maybe the quality of the die steel was substandard. But you'd think there would be much more evidence. You don't see a lot of die cracks, cuds, etc on Lincolns. Mostly it's just mushy strikes from erosion.
It would be interesting to know how many WD's were used each year by the branches.
Lance.
<< <i>
<< <i>Here's an idle thought.....the branch mint dies were worst when the branch mints were busiest making silver dollars, 1922-27. Perhaps the larger dollar dies needed to be tempered differently somehow than the smaller dies, but in the interests of "efficiency" they were all done the same way and/or together? Just speculation on my part. >>
Without looking into correspondence that doubtless a former member here has that corroborates this, a general breakdown of the die preparation process during the Pittman Act coinage years seems a reasonable explanation for this. A strange thing happens if you include 1921, however. While the 1921-S Morgan dollars often exhibit the same nasty die erosion as is seen on other 1920's branch mint coinage, 1921-D dollars are typically rather sharp and can even be found with PL surfaces if you're patient. What did these dies in seems to be die breaks, so it would seem that their die preparation process was quite different than San Francisco's. Had the Morgan dollar been continued into 1922 or had Denver struck a 1921 cent, it would be easy to see the effects of changes in their die prep, but since there is no type that spanned both 1921 and 1922 in Denver, we can't easily see this. Trying to assess differences in accumulation of die wear by comparing 1921-D Morgans to 1922-D Peace dollars isn't easy. >>
Excellent point! The 1921-D&S Morgans had slipped my mind, and the fact that the 1921-S dies went mushy while the 1921-D dies did not would help prove the idea that the mushiness was the result of improper die hardening rather than die steel problems.
The 1921-D Dimes come from sharp dies, though they did tend to crack as did the 1921-D Dollar dies. Compare them to the 1922-D cent dies, some of which are sharp and some of which are horribly mushy, and I think it would be safe to say that Denver lost the ability to temper dies properly somewhere during 1922. Maybe the head of that department retired?
<< <i>Worn dies. 1920's mintmarked Lincolns are notoriously poor. Maybe it was annealing. Or overuse. Planchet quality was rather poor. My guess is a lot of factors were to blame.
There are some nice examples out there. I have a couple of '26-Ds that are pretty decent. But the good stuff doesn't change hands often. Here's a 63 and 64.
Lance.
Wow. the top coin is awesome. Not a 63 either. Its at least a 65.