Surprise 5 Cents

what I've read is that they do the rims first....so if 2 blanks went down together into the collar with both rims done, where does the excess metal go on the 2nd (top ) rim when the design is stamped. That's my theory on how the top rim was flattened ..what do you think?

If I understanding what you are suggesting larena,As was mentioned earlier,if that was the case then there would be no design on one side of each coin,the 2 surfaces facing inward could not possibly have been struck.

What thesandpit said earlier is that it may be a partial collar which means the collar did'nt go down far enough or in this case it would have had to be down too far & when the coin was struck the metal was forced out over the top of the collar & flattened out,no 2nd coin involved.

If heat was involved as Sap has indicated, it would have been heated to the 'paste range' of copper nickel alloy.

Copper has a melting point of about 1080 deg.C.,
Nickel has a melting point of about 400 deg. C. higher than that, i.e. around 1400 deg. C.

There is not much evidence of black surface oxidation of the alloy, perhaps most of that has been removed.