Die Abrasion Affects On Obverse Lincoln Cents

Often we see die abrasion near the date on Lincoln cents. Sometimes it is minor and barely noticeable. But sometimes it affected more than we expect So we will examine a few of the 1966 and 1967 cents. Looking at these two year we see a lot die clashes happened. Sometimes the reverses are also affect and sometimes look even worse than the obverses.
But lets start off with looking at a fresh die to see what we the base line should look like. Here is a 1967 cent that is very fresh. The obverse looks great.


Note the nice lines on this coin. The date is full, the Jacket is full. sweet looking coin.
Looking closer to the lines on the jacket and date, we appreciate what they coins should look like from a fresh die.


But when we look at the reverse, it looks like it has been through a few die clashes. It is not a pretty sight.


The missing/altered devices are altered by abrasion on the die and it shows on the coins struck.
Moving now to the MDS die state the coin still looks pretty good:


Now we start to see multiple clashes on a coin. The first time is was polished and removed some of the clash and left clash lines. But this one is showing a mark to the left of the date. Either this was not completely removed or is a new mild clash. But note the area affected?

You can see more of the rounding of the date digits on the right side. So this die is aging a bit at this point.

After this point we see the die is altered a bit differently. the tool is now touching the edge of the field and the bust outline by moving into that edge of the if the die. While it looks huge on the coin, this is very minor on the die. It changes the look beyond the jacket and field edge.



Moving on to the next step of a die s life we start to not the date digits round more, the start of die flow on the fields and a second alteration of the jacket edge and field area.


Note the heavy die flow across the jacket at this point. The die is aging and is suffering abrasion.

Now the die is showing more wear and more abrasion. This will continue until the die is finally retired.


Well this is not the life of one die. But what dies do go through and events happen to them. Things do get worse for dies as they continue to age. I just wanted to show what events the dies go through. These little things I notice on every coin I look at. Thus the comments about die states, die abrasion, die wear and the Machine damage they so through while striking coins. I hope you appreciate this information.
Here is an example of die abrasion that is in its later stages. (VLDS)