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What are your feelings about the die anomaly called "Trails"
oldsubguru
Posts: 189
Trails (wavy steps); they have been around for almost twenty years now (first analyzed by John Wexler in 1994) and how many of you know about them? Trails are still being found on the new Jefferson nickels (2012) and the 2012 Lincoln Shield cent, so the Mint has not been able to "fix" the problem or they may be just ignoring it.
Some background for those of you who do not know what trails (wavy steps) are. They are a die anomaly found on all modern denominations, foreign coins, proof coins and some bullion and medals as well. We have documented trails being found on working dies, working hubs and master dies. The earliest known trail die is from Uruguay and found on a 4 centesimos coin. The earliest known trail die on USA coins is on two 1921-S Morgan dollars reverses (pictured below), though there is some disagreement about the validity of these trail lines.
The black arrows point to die deterioration flow lines, while the white arrows point to trail lines.
All in all, the trail anomaly moves metal around on the coin's surface more than most doubled dies and more than a few can be seen without the aid of magnification. I have included some pictures of strong trail dies.
So, what do you think.
BJ Neff
Some background for those of you who do not know what trails (wavy steps) are. They are a die anomaly found on all modern denominations, foreign coins, proof coins and some bullion and medals as well. We have documented trails being found on working dies, working hubs and master dies. The earliest known trail die is from Uruguay and found on a 4 centesimos coin. The earliest known trail die on USA coins is on two 1921-S Morgan dollars reverses (pictured below), though there is some disagreement about the validity of these trail lines.
The black arrows point to die deterioration flow lines, while the white arrows point to trail lines.All in all, the trail anomaly moves metal around on the coin's surface more than most doubled dies and more than a few can be seen without the aid of magnification. I have included some pictures of strong trail dies.
So, what do you think.
BJ Neff
Member; ANA, CONECA, CFCC, Fly-in-Club, FUN, NLG.
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Comments
Hoard the keys.
if you ask me the capped bust halves are the earliest versions of this, maybe earlier halves exhibit this as well
it is also my opinion they are metal flow lines
it is a battle between the dies and the flans. the flans can only be compressed so much via this striking process so the flans can't lose, and that leaves the dies and the collars. the pressure is pretty much reduced enough that the collars aren't going to be a problem and the trails have already happened by the time the metal is *pushed* to the collar.
so the dies it is. since the dies are going to be what gives out first, it is a simple matter of the die metal "splitting" probably not the right word, from the metal pressure of the flans moving outward, because it can only go far up into the dies and somewhere on the design of the die will be the weakest point. just like water, metal under pressure will find the most efficient method of travel under pressure. the irony is that they die trails always seem to go the same direction and very possibly undoing all i just said because the odds of those parts of the design on the die being weak all in the same direction is a bit improbable. maybe the method of making the dies and how the metal "layers" from the dies flow one direction or the other somewhat explaining why the trails would all focus one direction and that is because the dies (from modern production methods) all have weaknesses one direction or another from their creation process.
i've looked at metal rods before where the ends were cut and it looked like there were symmetrical lines from how the rods were made. maybe it is just from where they were cut?
also these trails should get smaller to larger via the way i understand them if that is how they came to be. somewhat like a die cracking.
that's my take on it anyway
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I still have a quad directional cent I've had set aside to sent to you BJ for some time now.
Currency - 1928-1929-1934 Series Stars All Denom. - 126 of ~846
Lincoln Cent Varieties
Baseball cards: Kirby Puckett
too specialized for me. Heavily worn dies are usually the opposite of what I look for, even
with modern coins.
Coin's for sale/trade.
Tom Pilitowski
US Rare Coin Investments
800-624-1870
This is a nice example, I believe it is the 1994P-1DER-045T
One other fact that I did not mention. Trails have been found on EDS coins as well as MDS and LDS, so die deterioration is not the answer. One look at a highly magnified picture of a trail line will dispel any thoughts of metal flow lines.
The above image is of a trail line from the bottom of the T in CENT on a Lincoln cent. Notice that the top edge is sharp, the line itself is not exactly straight and it does broaden as it 'trails' off away from the design element.
A few other thoughts. No trail die has been found with trails from every design element on one face of the coin. There is always one area that is absent of trail lines. Trails have been found in multiple directions (up to four) on one die ( that kind of elements die deterioration flow lines). Some coins have trails on both the obverse and reverse. The Mint does know that this anomaly exists. However, they are very reluctant to discuss why it happens. Their only comment was that there was horizontal movement between the working die and the working hub during the hubbing process.
If there are examples of earlier U.S.A. coins out there with trails, I would really like to see images of them. They may help to solve this mystery.
BJ Neff
I do not mean this in any way in a disrespectful or negative way. All positive here
Coin's for sale/trade.
Tom Pilitowski
US Rare Coin Investments
800-624-1870
Here seen coming of his beard, his tie and off the letters of LIBERTY
My guess (and it's only a guess) is that it's some form of deformation that occurs as a newly hubbed, annealed, or tempered die cools. The cooling might be slow or rapid (i.e. quenching).
Perhaps the trails line up with the "grain" of the die, but that wouldn't explain those specimens with trails in more than one direction.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
coinzip.com
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
<< <i>I've seen them before and always thought they were a result of overly aggressive polishing of the die by a mint worker. >>
This^ No question imo.
That said, I have no doubt that there will soon be (if there aren't already) some 'entrepreneurs' out there who are already attempting to cobble up enough interest in these to get a couple varieties of them into CPG or some other such nonsense.
RIP Mom- 1932-2012