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Posted 05/30/2015 10:45 am
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The dies are convex. Since they are slightly closer together in the center it helps "push" the metal outward to help fill the periphery.
The dies are convex. Since they are slightly closer together in the center it helps "push" the metal outward to help fill the periphery.
There's a nice discussion of the process on page 480 of the Encyclopedia of Morgan and Peace dollars which completely disagrees with you. That's where I learned about the basining process, and why it was such an art. Too little, and the periphery wouldn't strike up properly; too much, and the resulting coins wouldn't stack because the centers were too high. It had to be evolved to a new level of intricacy for Morgans given their complex peripheral detail and vast mintage. In fact (previous ref, page 86), it was the refinement of the basining process which helped delay the initial shipment of Morgan dies to San Francisco and New Orleans in 1878 - they were considered incapable of basining according to the complex 3-step process which William Barber had worked out to be necessary for the new coin.
Intuition tells one that given the speed of the strike @ 150+ per minute, metal/design flow would be barely finished by the time the hammer die was already on its' way back upward. This is a poor time for the edges of the dies to be farther apart (basined convex) than closer together (basined concave).
