My last educational manifesto for the day - no particluar reason other than I'm feeling wordy and generous today.
The three different fundamental classifications of errors, as originally defined by Mr. Alan Herbert back in the early 1970s, and still stand today - planchet errors, die errors, and striking errors. We can easily remember them if we remember the three mints that struck the vast majority of our 20th century coins - Philadelphia (P), Denver (D), and San Francisco (S)...Planchet (P), Die (D), and Striking (S). Alan's system is called the "PDS error classification system".
Now for the definitions:
Planchet errors - Any error that occurs during the planchet making process. Clipped planchets, incomplete planchets, laminations, split laminations, wrong thickness, wrong stock, wrong planchet (like a foreign planchet). Anything that you can think of that would be a part of the planchet and recognizable as flawed before the planchet went into the striking chamber.
Die errors - Any coin struck by a die that was damaged by the minting process. Die breaks and cracks,
Cuds (which are die breaks at the edge of the design), clashes, overpolishing as a result of removing clash marks, and any other form of damage that would be visible on the die if you were to remove it from the striking chamber and examine it.
Striking errors - Basically anything that doesn't fir the other two categories, by definition. If it's an error it had to have happened at the mint. If it's not something fundamentally wrong with the planchet or the die, it had to have gone wrong in the striking chamber. Examples include, but are definitely not limited to; broadstrikes, brockages, indents, double strikes, chain strikes, saddle strikes, ram strikes, any form of off center or collarless strike, partial collar strikes, bonded pairs, capped die strikes, even blank planchets (unstruck normal planchets are errors because they weren't struck...hence striking errors). Get the hint? Anything not a die or planchet error is a striking error.
Just thought I would try to educate and clarify a few things about errors (and actually pretty much all I know about errors since I don't study them).
One thing that would be of great use to anyone wanting to learn about and collect errors is to understand the minting process completely. There are some really good books and videos out there on the subject. If you don't know where to go to obtain these materials, I'd suggest membership in the
ANA and a phone call to the library. They will check the materials out to you for free (you pay postage both ways) and they have a very vast resource at your disposal.
And yes, even with all the political mumbo-jumbo going on, I do still support the
ANA. In fact, this time next year I will be a life member.
Posted 08/16/2007 11:47 am
