Grinding Mintmarks, Dates, Letters and Your Teeth

[RWB]

A recent thread on another board reminded me of the persistent misunderstanding about how visible over/dates and over/mintmarks, etc. happen.

 

These are done on soft dies – never hard ones.

 

First, the whole “grinding off” business very rarely happened. This has been the “best guess” because the ‘inside’ processes and/or language were not understood.

 

The easiest to understand is simple punching of a different letter or numeral where one already exists. For example a 2/1 overdate…. Here, the 1 was correctly punched into a working die. At some later time, it was decided to change the 1 to a 2 – maybe to keep a die in use into a new calendar year or resurrect a used die, etc….the reason does not matter. Up to about 1810 or so, attempts to hide the original 1 were minimal. Some metal routinely squished and moved so that parts of the 1 were filled in, but other places did not completely fill. Gravers were used to move surface metal around in attempts to hide the overdate. This often resulted in a very clear 2/1 overdate.

 

The next process is more complicated but produces a much better working die. It is one of several techniques engravers and diesinkers used to repair working dies and master dies/hubs. Let’s take the same 2/1 overdate with correctly punched 1. Instead of just punching in a 2, we first use a graving tool to deepen and slightly undercut the cavity created by the 1 punch. Next we warm the die to a dull red and fill the 1 with white hot iron or steel wire, pushing it tightly into the 1 gaps, and manually leveling the surface as best we can. After the die cools, we abrade the entire die surface so it is smooth and uniform. The die is then punched with the 2 in the correct place. The punch helps to set the iron wire more tightly mechanically than we could with just the graving tool. Any surface spill is abraded off at the numeral position.

 

This second process can result in dies that have clear underdates – if the fill didn’t hold or was poorly done. But most of the time, the result was a die that made perfect or near-perfect coins. Many more 1880/79 dollar dies were likely repaired this way than VAMpires have discovered – just because the underdate cannot be seen. Over mintmarks – O/CC for example – were created the same way. Partially visible underdates result from the repair being incomplete or partially failing during use. The “outlines” sometimes seen, result from incomplete bonding between the die steel and the fill – this can leave minute crevasses that widen during use.

 

When the U S Mint switched to direct reduction of master hubs in 1907, repunching of incorrect numbers and letters became obsolete. Modern Mint engravers have never worked this way and cannot describe the process. This technique died with Charles Barber (1917) and George Morgan.

 

[see: From Mine to Mint for details and information on how edge dies were made.]

 

[DaveG]

Posted ATS with appropriate commercial for purchasing FMtoM from Wizard Coin Supply.

 

Hopefully physics-fan3.14 won't be disappointed when he opens this thread!

[RWB]

This was written with the Friends of Pi in mind...

[Kurtdog]

So this would be from the next bunch of engravers. Was this just a misaligned second hand-punch? In other words, at that time, were two hand-punches the routine?

[WoodenJefferson]

Soft iron has been inlayed into harder metals for years. It can be done, if done right.

 

39:00 minutes Secrets of the Viking Sword

[messydesk]

This second process can result in dies that have clear underdates – if the fill didn’t hold or was poorly done. But most of the time, the result was a die that made perfect or near-perfect coins. Many more 1880/79 dollar dies were likely repaired this way than VAMpires have discovered – just because the underdate cannot be seen.

I would contend that there may also be "1881/79" dies repaired this way. There are plausible, but inconclusive examples of this. The first one that caught my eye long ago was 1881-S VAM 8A. There are even a couple in 1882 and 1883. Through 1883, the date the date position was fixed laterally, because at least the 18 was already in the hub, then repunched with a 4-digit logotype to complete the date. You see evidence of this on many coins of 1880-83 with a bold (or doubled) 18 and weaker 8x. In 1884, the date was punched into an undated die. To help align the 4-digit date punch, there was often a small dash inscribed in the die above the 10th denticle from the tip of the neck. Coincidentally, this was where the bottom tip of the 7 was in 1879. This could indicate that the 7, or part of it, was used to align date punches between 1880 and 83, then the dash (still seen 1884-85) was used to allow this practice to continue.

 

Something else that just dawned on me is that there are many 1883 dies with light, even pitting covering only the devices on both sides, and also some in 1882, including at least one O/S reverse dies, but I can't think of 1884 dies that have this (going from memory). Perhaps this pitting, which is totally different than the blotchy pitting sometimes seen in the fields, indicates a 3-4 year old die that was recycled, repunched, fields repolished, and then put into service.

[RWB]

Excellent! There are likely many coins from repaired dies out there than ever suspected. By understanding how repairs were performed in the 19th century, we can look back at varieties and better comprehend why certain coins look the way they do.

 

Re: 1881-S VAM 8A. Seems to resemble the 80/79 as mentioned. In this time period the Philadelphia Mint had three excellent engravers - Barber, Morgan and Key - plus a bunch of experienced die sinkers. Ample talent to repair dies w/o a trace of the work. A working die cost about $25. The senior die sinker made $4 a day; asst engraver Key made $6 per day – spending a day or two repairing a die was worth the time.

 

Die repair also included manual recutting of damaged or weak design elements and repunching of letters to strengthen them and increase die life. After use of the Janvier reducing lathe became common in 1907, the only parts that were available for repunching were mintmarks - as on the one Kurtdog posted. (1921 Morgan dollars might have been the last design for which individual letter punches were available for repair use.)

 

 

[CaptHenway]

Back in the 70's I was very involved with the 1880 dollar overdates (the 1880 8/7 VAM-23 was my discovery), and I also wrote a series of articles about some proposed 1882/1 dollar overdates.

 

At the time I suggested that some dies had been filled in before being re-dated, and The Powers That Be in the variety field at the time insisted that metal could not be added to a die that would stay on in subsequent coinage.

 

If you have documented proof that some dies had metal added to them before being re-dated I would LOVE to see it!

 

TD

[RWB]

The "Powers That Be" have long resisted TD and others who dare suggest that grinding out the date doesn't work - it just makes a depression in the die. (A chunk of clay and some toy numbers can illustrate this.) Such thought can be imposed only on a body that accepts dogma over reason. (Now, about those nasty bare-breasted 1916-1917 quarters…. )

 

Discussion of this is in From Mine to Mint; however, I am aware of no US mint dies that have been found where filling can be shown. Of course, if done right, it would only be detected by subsurface grain mapping.

 

As for the argument that the repair would fall out, consider: mechanical restraint of hard steel is very resistant to change; striking pressure would tend to fix an insert much as dirt and metal particles can fill numerals and letters; hot steel welds can be very sturdy; a poor weld would disintegrate quickly – making an unusable die, and likely result in the die being condemned. (I don’t know how many times a repair might be attempted….it is evident that some working dies were abraded multiple times to remove clashes, etc.)

 

Ever had a tooth filled? ….Same basic approach, except the dentist won’t heat your tooth to red hot.

 

[CaptHenway]

Posted ATS with appropriate commercial for purchasing FMtoM from Wizard Coin Supply.

 

Hopefully physics-fan3.14 won't be disappointed when he opens this thread!

 

Cannot find the thread. Must have been poofed.

[WoodenJefferson]

Posted ATS with appropriate commercial for purchasing FMtoM from Wizard Coin Supply.

 

Hopefully physics-fan3.14 won't be disappointed when he opens this thread!

 

Cannot find the thread. Must have been poofed.

 

You mean the mere mention of HIS name is enough?

[DaveG]

No poofing was involved.

 

Look Here

[CaptHenway]

No poofing was involved.

 

Look Here

 

Thought you had started a thread on the subject.

[Keigwin]

A recent thread on another board reminded me of the persistent misunderstanding about how visible over/dates and over/mintmarks, etc. happen.

 

These are done on soft dies – never hard ones.

It has been suggested that the reason the 1817/4 bust half dollars produced so few examples is that the overdate work was done after the die was hardened. It could not manage more than a dozen or so strikes before failure.

 

Would you agree?

Lance.

[RWB]

I agree that trying to repair a hardened die to change the date would be problematical. Hard die steel has well defined austenitic boundaries and is completely different than soft, easily manipulated steel.

 

What they actually did in 1817 on this die....? But your suggestions makes sense.

 

PS: Back in the 1880s, if I had a bunch of dies with the wrong date on them, I'd make a little punch that cut out bits of steel the correct shape to fill the old digits, and just a little thicker. Then heat them and tamp them into the undercut digit holes. That would make all of the repairs fairly uniform, and speed the work.

[DWLange]

I'm very skeptical that any fillers were added to dies to remove traces of an earlier date. On a heat-softened die, punching in a second numeral over the first would be more than sufficient to obliterate most evidence of the first in areas where their respective shapes overlap. It is only those parts of the first numeral which fall outside the shape of the second that the overdate feature is highly noticeable.

 

I've read Roger's book, and I don't recall any contemporary documentation of fillers being used, though this doesn't prove that it wasn't done. As Roger mentions often in the book, most mint employees simply learned from others or through their own experience how to get each job done, and little thought was given to recording all of their techniques. It wasn't expected that anyone outside of the mints would be interested in such things.

[CaptHenway]

A recent thread on another board reminded me of the persistent misunderstanding about how visible over/dates and over/mintmarks, etc. happen.

 

These are done on soft dies – never hard ones.

It has been suggested that the reason the 1817/4 bust half dollars produced so few examples is that the overdate work was done after the die was hardened. It could not manage more than a dozen or so strikes before failure.

 

Would you agree?

Lance.

 

A certain (unknown to me) percentage of all dies made cracked during the hardening process. The 1814 die could have been resoftened, overdated, and rehardened with a fatal flaw developing during the rehardening process.

[CaptHenway]

I'm very skeptical that any fillers were added to dies to remove traces of an earlier date. On a heat-softened die, punching in a second numeral over the first would be more than sufficient to obliterate most evidence of the first in areas where their respective shapes overlap. It is only those parts of the first numeral which fall outside the shape of the second that the overdate feature is highly noticeable.

 

I've read Roger's book, and I don't recall any contemporary documentation of fillers being used, though this doesn't prove that it wasn't done. As Roger mentions often in the book, most mint employees simply learned from others or through their own experience how to get each job done, and little thought was given to recording all of their techniques. It wasn't expected that anyone outside of the mints would be interested in such things.

 

I don't think it can be said that the Mint filled in dies before overdating them unless and until documentation is found that says it happened. I just wanted to keep the possibility open for discussion.

 

The wide difference in the results of the overdating process is fascinating. Look at the 1880-P 8/7 VAM-6 and 23. The first has the ears of the 7 virtually unaffected by the 8 punch, while the second has an outline of the crossbar of the 7 driven deeper into the die than the 8. Why the difference? I don't know.

[WoodenJefferson]

The variation comes with the metal, tools and especially the die sinker's attitude.

 

Let's take the 1942/1 Mercury dime over date. The die sinker Hans, lived his entire life here in the United States after his parents immigrated here from the Old Country. He learned the language, worked hard and finally got an apprenticeship in the die manufacturing plant at the Philadelphia Mint.

 

Hans was reliable, worked hard and through his peers recognition, was given more and more responsibility to create US coinage dies.

 

In the later part of 1941, Hans's mother-in-law, Frieda, fled worn torn Europe and landed up at Hans's American dream home, welcomed with open arms.

 

By the middle of 1942 Frieda had not yet found a suitable place in which to live in Philadelphia, so she lingered on at Hans's house for what seemed to him, to be an eternity. While living there, she filled Hans's wife's head with all kinds of silly notions. Some of these notions made Hans very angry and although he loved his wife and tolerated his Mother-In-Law, the situation at hand was getting worse by each passing day.

 

Hans was soon consumed by these notions. Even while at work, he could not get the visions of his near and dear mother-in-law out of his head. Mean while, in order to save money and materials for the war effort, Hans was given the task to re-date some left over reserve stock of already fabricated1941 US Dime obverse dies, so he immediately got to work on that project.

 

Confident that Hans would accomplish this task with little to no supervision, the dies were checked out and the work commenced.

 

Hans's skill at reworking coin dies was legendary. He could transform what seemed impossible, into the possible, the pride of American craftsmanship. As Hans worked, idle thoughts wondered from the task at hand to his troubling affair at home. Angered that the new house guest was manipulating his marriage, Hans picked up the number 2 die and while holding it firmly in the handle, took his number 8 ball peen hammer, reared back and just before he struck the die to imprint he 2, a vision of his mother-in-law's head appeared in the vise ~thwack~ the deed was done.

 

Coming to his senses, Hans looked at his substandard attempt to obliterate the under date, but it was still there, quite visible to the naked eye. Embarrassed of his work, Hans hid the serial numbered die in the bottom of the box, well below the other perfectly corrected dies, in the hopes that no one would initially notice. They did not.

 

The refurbished dies were eventually installed into the coining presses at the Denver Minting facility and millions of 90%silver dimes were being produced. Was the error initially noticed, perhaps, but in the over all scheme of things, the scarcity of materials came into play and production continued.

 

And so today, thanks to Hans & Frieda, we have the very collectable Roosevelt 1942/1 over date dime.

 

[Conder101]

The problem I have with filling the voids in the die is that most likely the steel being used to fill them would not be the same composition as the dies themselves and would react differently to the hardening process. The fill material would either wind up being harder or softer than the steel of the die itself. Most likely softer. These areas would then tend to "collapse" or compress under the pounding of the dies during coinage. (As the die itself tend to do if not properly hardened.)

 

Even if you used the same steel the melting of it to fill the voids would still result in areas of differing hardness. During the hardening of the dies would all of these areas, fill and not fill, achieve the same hardness? If not then you are still going to have a collapse problem.

[RWB]

Simply punching over an existing numeral will fill in only part of the original. The exact parts depend on the numerals/letters. While this was clearly used on many early dies, it is later that we see very different results - results that were/are impossible unless the original numeral is filled.

 

I think Mr. Lange will agree that "grinding off" the initial digit is impossible without leaving a "pothole."

 

Although the available evidence is very sparce, I will stick with the stated view as posted.

[CaptHenway]

Does anybody have a good picture of an 1854-O "Huge O" quarter handy? That die shows an excellent example of metal displacement in the design elements around the mintmark, that occured when somebody at the N.O. Mint (presumably the Coiner) hand punched an O into a die received without one. Gives you a good example of how much metal can be displaced with a punch when you put enough force behind it.

[messydesk]

I don't have a picture of the 54-O Huge O 25c, but the 1878-CC VAM 6 Morgan $1 shows the same thing as a result of the 2nd C being punched high.

 

1878-CC VAM 6

 

Scroll down a bit to the comparison with a normal mint mark.

[Conder101]

The 1854 Huge O quarter tends to show evidence of the mintmark being hand engraved into the die not punched.

[DWLange]

The 1854 Huge O quarter tends to show evidence of the mintmark being hand engraved into the die not punched.

 

Ditto to that. It was so crudely cut into the die that "carved" would be more accurate than "engraved."

 

Here's a link to NGC's VarietyPlus page showing the Huge O

 

http://www.ngccoin.com/vp-variety.aspx?coinid=2176&PopSubCat=Seated-Quarters-1838-1891-25C-

[CaptHenway]

The 1854 Huge O quarter tends to show evidence of the mintmark being hand engraved into the die not punched.

 

Ditto to that. It was so crudely cut into the die that "carved" would be more accurate than "engraved."

 

Here's a link to NGC's VarietyPlus page showing the Huge O

 

http://www.ngccoin.com/vp-variety.aspx?coinid=2176&PopSubCat=Seated-Quarters-1838-1891-25C-

 

Gentlemen:

 

I strongly disagree. Look at any good picture, and see how the upper right corner of the R of QUAR. and the upper left corner of the D of DOL. were crushed by the metal displaceemt. Ditto the branch and feathers above. This would not have happened if the O were formed by hand-cutting metal out of the die.

[messydesk]

The 1854 Huge O quarter tends to show evidence of the mintmark being hand engraved into the die not punched.

 

Ditto to that. It was so crudely cut into the die that "carved" would be more accurate than "engraved."

 

Here's a link to NGC's VarietyPlus page showing the Huge O

 

http://www.ngccoin.com/vp-variety.aspx?coinid=2176&PopSubCat=Seated-Quarters-1838-1891-25C-

 

Gentlemen:

 

I strongly disagree. Look at any good picture, and see how the upper right corner of the R of QUAR. and the upper left corner of the D of DOL. were crushed by the metal displaceemt. Ditto the branch and feathers above. This would not have happened if the O were formed by hand-cutting metal out of the die.

Count me with TD.

[RWB]

A large punch would naturally move more metal than a small one. At some size, and under certain conditions of the die steel, once could expect bulging adjacent to the punched location. Normally, I would have expected a die sinker to abrade this so the entire surface was uniform. (A similar phenomenon occurs in making a die from a hub, but in that situation the entire die surface deforms to match the much harder hub. This was one of the problems identified during "single hubbing" experiments.)

 

The discussion and comments help us realize that although we now know more than we did a generation ago, many questions remain.

 

As to the coin, from the photo it has the appearance of a deeply punched, oversize “O.” But the adjacent letters resemble sloppy abrasive work, and not mechanical movement of steel into the letters. Bulging or pushing of steel into an existing letter cavity would look more like a “squished” top of the letter than in the photo…boundaries would be sharp not gradual. Secondly, the extent of damage is much beyond what would be expected from just the “O” punch. The rest of the reverse in the photo is a mess too. Looks like someone trying to do something for which they lacked the skill and experience – and the mad a mess of it.

 

Just some thoughts before the World Series starts.

[CaptHenway]

Hard to say what happened, since it was a non-Mint "engraver" doing the work. Assuming it was punched, he might have heated the die red hot and displaced more metal than in normal Philadephia die shop punching. Or he might have pushed up a crater-like bulge around the O that was then basined smooth, taking the tops of the R&D and the other details with it.