1943 Penny with Die Break
Lots of damage can be done to a coin die during the process of striking many hundreds of thousands or millions of coins and this damage can be seen on the struck coin! Dies can crack, chip or break and pieces of the die can fall off and may go unnoticed until quality control picks up a problem and the die is replaced. Of course it may also be press techicians mishandling the die and causing damage to it.
The coin shown above is a die break where a large piece of the edge of the die has broken away and left a void which fills with metal during the strike. Notice the extreme weakness on the reverse behind the die break where there was no metal left to fill the design. The die break is an expansion of a rim cud. Die cracks are also commonly seen on pre-decimal coins which is the warning sign that a die is about to fail. The die producing these sorts of errors would quickly be replaced.
Posted by harrisk at August 29, 2011 12:09 PM
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