| Author |
 Replies: 13 / Views: 5,597 |
|
|
Valued Member
United States
361 Posts |
I was going though a pile of pennies a buddy gave me. I found 3 nice 1960 D LMCs I noticed they have the exact same "grain" or "die scratches", whats the official term? This is the first time I have ever seen multiply coins with that same characteristic. I was floored, it's pretty cool to actually see that in the wild. It opened my eyes to yet another aspect of collecting. So my question is this... With modern coins, about how many coins are made with the same die? The 1960 D LMC has a mintage of about 1.5 BILLION. How many dies would they have used for that? Thanks Dan |
|
|
|
Valued Member
United States
424 Posts |
I toured the Denver mint earlier this year and they addressed this question. The tour guide said they produce coins at a rate of about 12/second per machine and the dies are replaced about every six hours (that is more math than what I want to do this early in the morning). After the coins are pressed they drop into a holding bin and some are randomly inspected about every 15 minutes. If an error is found then that bin is rejected, the machine is shut down and the dies are replaced no matter how "old" they are.
|
|
Moderator
 United States
54280 Posts |
12 coins * 60 seconds in a minute * 60 minutes in an hour * 6 hours = 259,200 coins.
At that rate, 1.5 billion coins would take over 5,700 dies.
In 1909, in San Francisco, they made 484,000 (1909-S VDB) coins and used 4 dies for the obverse.
It looks like they are getting better "mileage" now.
Show your financial support of the Coin Community Family (click here)See my topic on Mexican Numismatic Medals (click here)Edited by nss-52
03/28/2016 08:19 am
|
|
Bedrock of the Community
Australia
21786 Posts |
200,000 struck is a typical number off a small die.
There are a great number of variable factors that affect die life.
|
|
Valued Member
59 Posts |
I'll bet the number you were given at the Denver Mint is not the same as the die life in the 1960's.
|
|
Moderator
United States
187446 Posts |
Quote:
It looks like they are getting better "mileage" now. Lower relief will do that.  |
|
Valued Member
 United States
361 Posts |
So collecting all the different dies is a little impractical then?  For that 1960 D about 5700 dies? 5700 coins alone just for that one date and mint. Crazy. |
|
Pillar of the Community
Russian Federation
5172 Posts |
IIRC, your typical minor variety (Sheldon, VAM, that sort of thing) is usually one die. So, yes, for earlier series, there are people essentially collecting by die (and yes, this means ludicrous numbers - dozens of Sheldon varieties for 1850s large cents, and, IIRC, hundreds of VAMs for some Morgan dates). Of course, if there are several thousand individual dies, it would mostly be impossible to figure them out anyway (there would be just too many similar). |
|
Bedrock of the Community
United States
17884 Posts |
It depends on what time period you are talking about and the size of the coin. Today a cent has a die life of around a million coins. In the 1960's it was in the 500K - 750K range. Five cents today are around 500K, in the 60's it was in the 200K - 300K range. Go back to the 1860's and die life for cents was in the 100K - 200K, nickel five cents were in the 15K - 28K range. The coppernickel coins had unusually short die lives, most of the coinage ran around 200K. This is why the Shield nickel is typically found with lots of die cracks, doubled dies and unfinished features. The die shop was overworked trying to keep the coining department supplied with dies. Before 1865 the mint needed around 500 or so pairs of dies for all its coinage, but in 1866 they would need around 1,400 pair of dies just for the nickel 3 and 5 cent pieces. The presses coining Shield nickels would have had to have their dies changed every four hours or so. Go back to the start of the mint and die lives could easily drop well below 50K. Look at the 1798 cent, the first US coin with a mintage over 1 million. There were 44 die marriages need to complete that coinage, an average of less than 23,000 coins per die pair. Edited by Conder101
03/29/2016 12:26 pm
|
|
Moderator
United States
54280 Posts |
Quote:
Go back to the start of the mint and die lives could easily drop well below 50K. Look at the 1798 cent, the first US coin with a mintage over 1 million. There were 44 die marriages need to complete that coinage, an average of less than 23,000 coins per die pair. A die pair is not indicative of how many coins were able to be minted by a single die. A single die, say a reverse die, might break and be replaced. The obverse die continues in use until it breaks or wears out and is replaced. Show your financial support of the Coin Community Family (click here)See my topic on Mexican Numismatic Medals (click here)Edited by nss-52
03/29/2016 1:20 pm
|
|
Bedrock of the Community
United States
17884 Posts |
OK figure it a different way 1798 32 obv dies 34 rev dies, mintage of 1,841,745 Works out to an average of 57,554 per obv or 54,168 per rev.
I did error on the 23,000 figure, I used a mintage of a million rather than the actual mintage (Didn't realize it was so much more.) With the actual it works out to an average of 41,857 per die pair.
|
|
Pillar of the Community
 United States
4587 Posts |
18m 1852 trimes, 104 obv and 102 rev (from memory, don't have Fivaz & Zack in hand) 173k or a little more per.
The other problem with collecting all modern dies is how do you tell them apart? Since they are created from a single or small # of hubs, most are identical. Things like die polish lines are very ephemeral...
-----Burton 50+ year / Life / Emeritus ANA member (joined 12/1/1973) Life member: Numismatics International, CONECA Member: TNA, FtWCC, NETCC, EveryCountry (online) coin club Owned by three cats and a wife of 40+ years (joined 1983) Author: 3rd Edition of the Sample Slabs book, https://www.sampleslabs.info/ |
|
Valued Member
United States
361 Posts |
Good point BStrauss3
All the above comments do put modern die collecting into perspective.
Thank you all.
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
4587 Posts |
Now there is one possibility that comes to mind. And that is things like die chips, where it may be possible to identify early middle and late stages of the same die. But the percentages are against you given you trying to find a million coins out of 500 million that were mimted.
-----Burton 50+ year / Life / Emeritus ANA member (joined 12/1/1973) Life member: Numismatics International, CONECA Member: TNA, FtWCC, NETCC, EveryCountry (online) coin club Owned by three cats and a wife of 40+ years (joined 1983) Author: 3rd Edition of the Sample Slabs book, https://www.sampleslabs.info/ |
| |
Replies: 13 / Views: 5,597 |
|
Posted 03/28/2016 08:16 am
