Why Do Some Coins Have Digits In The Denticles?

Im really interested to see what Kevin says about the misplaced digits in the denticles (or other parts of the coin for that matter).

Since there are so many dates where these mis-placed digits are present, there must be some kind of explanation behind it. I'm still not convinced that it was a die hardness/softness trial due to the other explanations above.

Wish there were Mint records/procedures available that could shed some light on to this.

Flynn offers that the mostly likely explanation for MPD's is just plain carelessness by inexperienced engravers or apprentices. He uses the IHC as an example. The area available to strike the date on an IHC is 1/8" between the bust and the denticles. A misalignment of the date punch by 1/10" would put the date in the denticles or the bust. He hypothesizes that unskilled engravers could be trained to perform the monotonous task of repetitively punching the date into hundreds of working dies that were produced for each year. Boredom from repeating a manual task can lead to lack of concentration, and mistakes were made.

As evidence, he offers that 95% of all MPD's are directly above and below the normal date position. (I guess one could argue that the '1' in the neck variety would be an argument against this explanation). He also states that between 1880 and 1900, there were many more MPD's in smaller coins than in larger ones. He states that larger coins have a larger work area into which the date can be properly set, thus minimizing MPD's.

He offers that this is not the only explanation, but it the most likely one.