1808 Large Cent, 12 Star

SsuperDdave, thanks! A lot what you are saying is making sense to me.

Panzaldi, I think I am seeing signs of the beginning of the die crack between the D and the wreath and the S and the wreath?

Yours was definitely struck before the others. The other coins are from Die State VII which clearly show the crack from the D across the O above NE to the wreath, and the triangular die chip that fell out inside the D.

Encyclopedia of Early United States Cents 1793 - 1814 by Walter Breen.

Drsandman2, thank you! Explained the way you did it makes sense to me:)

panzaldi,

Great questions. From what I understand, they put grease on the die so that the coins eject smoothly and to reduce heat from friction during striking. This grease fills the recesses of the dies, and prevents the blank planchet from filling these recesses. You can imagine that over thousands of strikes, that the coin might start sticking to the die once struck. In fact, lack of die grease might be why we have other errors, like multiple strikes on one planchet.

I snagged this picture of Kennedys from another forum. Notice how the first 9 is completely missing on some of these examples. In fact, you can see some weird smudges or metal flow on the coin where the die grease was.

The lack of detail from die grease should be more obvious on coins that have large die cracks and Cuds, because these cracks are being filled by metal that would otherwise strike up in other areas. It is possible for a chunk of grease to fill one device on the coin, making it virtually disappear. It could take many strikes until the grease is vacated from the device.

Any time you have machinery with metal parts moving past each other you need lubrication to reduce friction, wear, and heat. This means oils or greases. And oils and grease LOVE to attract and accumulate dirt and in the case of the mint, metal dust. Another reason for oil on the dies is because the die steel rusts fairly easily. The oil helps protect the steel from moisture. Another source of oil is the planchets themselves. The presses have automatic feeders and the planchets are given a light coating of oil to keep them from jamming in the feeding tubes. Over time all these oils and their dust loads can build up and fill recesses in the die.

Great explanation of the die grease Drsandman2 and how it is used. I can see how that could cause the missing star. it's really fascinating to see these three examples and the progression of what occurred in the stamping of them. I really love learning about the history of these old copper mints and this gave me quite a bit of insight into the minting of these examples. So I'm going to guess that it doesn't matter if the missing star was due to die grease or die sinking, either way it still qualifies as 12 star variety. Whats really interesting is that the same year coin with the same error could have occurred in two completely different ways. BTW thanks for passing this knowledge on, it was greatly appreciated. I love my 12 star even more. I've had her over 30 years. I paid about $35 for her in the 80's and is the reason I started collecting the old coppers.