Progressive Die Gouges? Help me understand what's going on here!!???

Windycity

Here are images of 3 2017-P Lincoln Cents with what I believe are fairly dramatic obverse and reverse die gouges. I don't understand the minting process well enough to understand how these die gouges appear to be progressive. Welcome help from the experts to explain what happens.

FredWeinberg

They're feeder finger scrapes against
the Dies, imo.

It's been fairly common on many States
Quarters from the 2001-2003 era; I've
seen it on fewer Cents, and your 17-P's
are a bit better than average.

Probably from 2-3 different dies.
And, the scrapes can get worse as
the FF goes back an forth against the
die face.

LanceNewmanOCC

.
the first image with the large gape in the back of lincolns neck, that part of the die design would be recessed and if the die had been scraped/chipped/broken in that area after a while, the nape would have gotten bigger (chip/internal cud etc), whereas in the image, it actually is lessened/recessed which means raised on the die or a flan issue or something like a strike through.

so you think the metal scrapings built up on the die in that area and struck surprisingly many coins before falling off in pieces and/or all at once.

if this is the case, as the scrapings build up and fall off, that would create an seemingly inconsistent progression where scrapings/gunk builds up/falls off/builds up/falls off.

i don't recall positing further about feeder finger damage stages/variations until now.

so maybe the scrapings from the reverse mainly ended up sticking to the hammer die as well as the anvil. the obv damage seems more recessed than raised which leads me to that thinking.

glad these were posted.

visually pleasing and neat.
.

Windycity

I have about 9 more coins with various stages of the progression which I can post if helpful and/or if there is interest.

ricko

Very interesting... I have not seen damage like that before... Thanks @FredWeinberg for the explanation. Cheers, RickO

davewesen

How do feeder fingers get bent so they hit dies? and how do they work?

LanceNewmanOCC

@davewesen said:
How do feeder fingers get bent so they hit dies? and how do they work?

here are some links for various info.

1 - 2l

looked for some videos of the minting process that showed feeder fingers in action. ran out of time.

there is a ton of info about them in the archives here.
.

robec

Wouldn't a die gouge show up as raised on the minted coin?

mannie gray

Very cool coins.
Thank you for posting them.

asheland

Interesting coin and explanation!