Where To Look For Doubled Dies On The ATB Quarters.

Where to look for doubled dies on the ATB Quarters.
The ATB Quarters are often looked at the letters inside if ring on the reverse of the coin. But these devices are incuse devices. What does that mean? The devices are pressed into the coin and not raised like all the other devices on the coin. So why is important? On usual raised devices, the hub doubling will show as an enlarged devices. Machine doubled examples will show up as reduced, flat, shelf like reducing the overall size of the devices. Note example below:

Note on the image on the left, you will see a normal sized device, but small areas are affected by a reduction of the devices size. The center image shows a normal sized device without Machine Doubling. The example of the right is showing a strong hub doubled (doubled die) example. On it we see the devices enlarged. Keep in mind that this applies for normal raised devices. So what happens on the die for each example:
On the first and second example, the die is just a normal die. On the machine doubled example, the device was altered after the strike by die movement. On the example on the right the one marked doubled die, the devices are doubled in the die. So coins with that die will have doubled devices. On this coin the word ONE would look like this:

Thus the die is causing the doubled die and not the strike.
Doubling on incuse devices
Because the result is just backwards on the die, the incuse devices on a coin would be raised on the die. A die is a negative of a coin that is struck. Riased on the coin Incuse on the die. Raised on the die, incuse devices on the coin. We have seen this for years on the VDB on the cent on the shoulder. Just didn't think much about it. But this device can at times be missing on the cents. Why? Because the polishing of the die remove the raised devices there. The fields are the outside part of a die. So if the die is polished hard in that area, the VDB will be missing. Why am I going here? Every once in a while we will see doubling on the VDB area:

The rest of the coin will look normal or have some slight Machine Doubling on the raised devices, but when looking at the VDB, it looks doubled. But as I mentioned, that are is raised, so any die movement before or after the strike will alter those devices like the example above.
So on the ATB Quarters all the devices inside the ring area on the reverse of the quarter will be incuse devices. So any slight movement will affect these devices by enlarging them. But instead of being a doubled die, this is called Machine Doubling. I did a test of 100 random quarters I found in change and 70% of them had slight MD or strong Machine Doubling on them. Only 30% were normal. So it is no wonder new ones find these and think and sell them as doubled dies. But they are machine doubled examples. So what does that have to do with my original question?
Where to look for doubled dies on the ATB Quarters?
The reason I brought this up is that we normally starting looking at the outside edge devices. On these, forget that. The single squeeze dies are showing the hub doubling differently. You can find this on the areas near the center of the coin Class 9 doubled dies start sometimes with an improper alignment and then snaps into the right place. This move affects the dies. The devices near the center are often the ones affected and the other ones a normal as the die will correct during the hubbing. So, where do we look? Here is a few areas to check first: (All images from John Wexler)
















While this one looks like there are a lot of DDRs on it, there are some that have a lot more.










The homestead quarters are something you need to look up.





One hundred and sixty nine on just this one park alone. All pretty much in the same areas. All the others on different areas:







So when looking for DDRs on these, check John Wexlers site out to see what is out there. Where to look. On the obverse there is even a few quarters with the doubled ears also.

The doubled ear lobes was the only thing listed on the obverse of the quarters.

So you can stop checking for DDO's on these also. But who knows, you find something new? So I hope this helps on your searches for doubled dies on the ATB Quarter series. There is a lot more to check for on John's site.
http://doubleddie.com/719755.html