Partial Piece Of Drum Missing

to CCF. Common,not an error. Grease Filled Die or worn.
John1

Not a Greaser, just incomplete fill from insufficient pressure. Washington's head is opposite the drum and both are high points in the designs. If the pressure is a little low there isn't enough metal flow to bring up the drum completely. Same reason S OF is often weak on the Lincoln Memorial cents, the base of the bust requires so much metal that there just isn't enough to bring up the lettering on the reverse. There are three things that can be done to try and solve this problem. Pressure can be increased, striking speed can be reduced, or relief can be lowered. The downside to increasing pressure is additional strain on the dies and shortened die life. Slower striking speeds allows the metal more time to "flow" and fill the recesses in the die, but with the ever increasing demand for more coins speeds have greatly increased instead. This is why the relief of our coins has been constantly reduced, to try and compensate for the higher speeds and lower pressures.