1947 Nickel With Re-Punched 7 Not Just Once, But Three Times?

yontan thats awesome! I do see some MD on mine and yours but the notches are all in the same spots too, the bottom of the 7 is a dead give away for being doubled in my opinion. Question is are these actually a Doubled Die Reverse or something that is common on this year.

The question is:

If this only occurs on some of the coins, and the working dies were chrome plated, then were the newly made working dies "touched up" by hand punching prior to chrome plating?

I do know that for 1947, the Maple Leaf was added to each working die by a hand punch made by Thomas Shingles, probably prior to chrome plating and die polishing.

So John, it looks like we noticed something very interesting, and learned about master dies, but it is not a double die. Still, fun. By the way, please check out my new discovery ( just above your entry) about the 1959 nickels with dot on the 9. Bill.

So far, my opinion is "they all have it". Further examination might shed light on mint practices, or identify specific dies. I hate to speculate on it, but it seems like with a mintage of over 17 million between 47 and 47ML, and finding this on so many coins, implies they all originated with the same dated master die. I have gone to PCGS population report and downloaded TrueView images, 3 each of 1947, 1947 Dot, 1947 ML, 1947 SP, and 1947 ML SP. All 15 coins have at least a hint of it, most very distinct. Evidence of the third punch seems to vary, so I'm thinking they polished it off, or die state, or strike. Evidence of a split serif in the upper left of N in Canada also varies. I'd encourage someone else to go find images and see what you think.

One of the things I find interesting is a strong gash across the bottom of the 7 which at first glance can be written off as PMD, but it appears on all three versions of the 1947. Below are regular, Dot, and ML - they all have it, yet some coins don't. I'll let the experts decide what it means.

Within the photography limits of lighting and angle, I would say all 15 PCGS images, 3 each in the 5 categories cited above, exhibit at least some evidence of tripling inside the notch of the 7. Certainly the prominent "doubling" (the first layer down inside the notch) exists on all of them. 11 or 12 out of 15 show some evidence of the line across the bottom of the 7 imaged above, and on 8 out of 15 it's irrefutable, two of them with Maple Leafs. Which implies that the Maple Leaf was added to the same die that produced the regular and dot 1947's.

This is reminiscent of the 1947ML half dollars, where all straight 7 ML coins are 7/7/7 - a resurfaced die 5 from 1947 with the Maple Leaf added. A similar tripling is visible inside the notch of the 7. For the half dollars the refinished working die theory is understandable, because only 38,433 were minted. However, for the 1947ML nickels, 9.6 million were minted, so it's difficult to believe that it's just one resurfaced working die with ML punched into it.