Interesting Die Gouge On The Reverse Of This 21-P Morgan

I believe that there's a VAM-3D, and a VAM-3GH in the overpolished eagle reverse specimens.

Chance

I'll check that out.

While looking at some other 1921 morgans that I have, I encountered one that's interesting. It's apparently an adjustment strike from the Denver mint. The casual observer would simply think it was worn and scratched. The planchet was grainy, and the strike so incomplete that a lot of the highest points of the coin show these unidirectional scratches. It reminds you of some of the adjustment marks on our early coins. These "scratches" appear on both obverse and reverse, and run in the same direction.

The legends on this coin have partially filled characters, with high ridges toward the outer periphery of the legends, and the wreath is nearly devoid of details.

I've had it for years, and always just regarded it as a worn coin, which it clearly is not. I'll take a few pics of that one to show you what I mean. It's kind of cool now that I have surmised what it is.

Chance

Yes, very much please.

Here are a couple better pictures of the adjustment strike after a quick (and I stress "quick") bath in MS70. No matter what lighting I tried, I was unable to cut through the toning to show the remaining luster.

The grainy finish of the planchet is visible in the fields as well, especially on the reverse, to the right of the eagle.

I wonder how this would grade ... given that the strike is so weak. It's not been circulated all that much, and much mint luster remains.

Chance

Indeed, there is an exhaustive list of VAMs for 1921. I can only study these until my eyes cross, then I have to stop.

Chance

There's a certified 21-S on ebay right now that's been suggested is an adjustment strike. It's a bit more pronounced than this Denver issue, but the lightness of strike is over the entire coin, obverse and reverse.

Here's a link to that listing:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1921-S-MORG...em4ae90cab51

Chance

Sorry for the overnight wait - I wanted to forget about it for a bit and revisit my thinking fresh. What follows is the numismatic equivalent of wide-eyed speculation, and probably shouldn't be taken as Gospel.

Whether or not yours is an adjustment strike isn't relevant here. Methinks is probably is, but the Mint turned out some truly execrable product in 1921 and one must always factor the pressure to produce at such a high rate into these things.

The important thing I glean from your coin is a pretty good hint about the order in which die devices fill during a strike. As you know, the planchet metal adopts liquid properties during a strike. Metal actually flows, on order to fill the areas of varying volume disproportional to the amount of planchet metal available at that exact spot. This is how flow lines come to be, and we know it to be in a generally center-outward direction. That's why dies were basined, ground into a slightly concave configuration to help metal completely fill the periphery of the die.

Now for the wild-eyed part. During the strike, planchet metal flows into peripheral lettering at a pretty high rate of speed (at 150 strikes per minute, the coin has 0.4sec to be inserted, struck and ejected) and splashes against the first thing that impedes its' progress - the spots inside the letter which meet its' progress at a 90-degree angle. That's why the ridges we see are on "horizontals" on the sides of the letter away from the center. Then it begins splashing back into the deepest part of the letter and fills the letter upwards In an adjustment strike - or by definition any strike with "sufficiently insufficient" pressure - that initial splash and a partial letter fill is all that happens. It can't finish.

That same thing happened to both of our coins. Yours was caused by pressure insufficient to even fill the letters, possibly along with poor basining. Mine was caused by what I'm theorizing to be a slightly-compressible strikethrough/fill which slowed the process sufficiently or stopped it completely.