Legal Counterfeit?

Thanks for the info, Michael.

Yes, vertical is up and down, horizontal is side to side.

That is just it, the only way to strike an off-center on a horizontal striking press is for the dies to come together and happen to catch the planchet before it get a chance to completely fall out of the way. A split second later and the planchet wouldn't be there. It can still happen because the dies are striking 13 times a second and it does take a bit of time for the planchet to get out of the way.

The planchet are normally enclosed in the collar. I would suspect the planchet are put in the collar and there is something over the holes until just before it moves in between the dies.

I don't know if the mint uses the same system but I have seen presses where the collar is a large steel disk with 24 holes around the circumference. This disk is mounted vertically. Now you would put the planchets in at say 9 o'clock. About every 1/12 second the disk rotates one position. From 9:30 to 2:00 there is a cover on each side to keep the planchet from falling out. At 3:00 are the dies. Every 1/12 second a planchet is rotated into place and the dies come together striking the coin and withdrawing. At 6:00 a rubber tipped ram pushes the coin out of the collar and when it gets back to 9:00 it get loaded with another planchet. To get an off-center when the collar rotates to the 3:00 position the planchet slips out at the bottom and falls out but before it gets completely out of the way the dies come together catching the falling planchet and striking the off-center.