2015 Quarter Die Deterioration Or What?

yeah, DDD, notice the radial flow lines of the metal.

Note the walking action on the fields. DDD affects the fields in the direction of the closest rim. On your coin you can see see even inside of the devices the devices are thinking of moving towards a new location.




What causes this? The die are made to do one job. To make something that is flat into a multi-layer design on a coin. So a lot of metal movement occurs during the strike. We are used to see out vehicles from 100K miles in the past to over 200/300K miles. what would happen if we stopped adding oil to our vehicles? They would wear out. Same with dies making coins. There is no lubricant to protect the dies. Why because they would be affected in color, attract dust and grit, and would not something people would appreciate. So this constant wear, making coins, up to a million sometimes creates a lot of wear and tear on the dies.

All kinds of stuff happens, just with like a vehicle. Things break down. Events happen to the dies. All they can do is try to fix the issue, or retire the die. Thus because our eyes are trained because of looking so often, we see this on the coin we are looking at. Also forgot to mention the die flow lines the surface of the fields. The fields are the outside part of the die, the deepest recesses are what is the highest areas on a coin, are deep in side the die. The fields may under go polishing to remove these flow lines, or clash lines, or Feeder Finger Damage, or even die gouges, leaving die scratches behind. Eventually they need another and another polishing. Soon the devices are starting to show weak and the dies are getting thinner on the fields. Soon the dies start of crack from the field reduction.


Also the devices are getting shortened/thinned each time a die is polished. So this all happens for what reason? Not the simple answer to make coins, but because of the wear and tear that the coins go through.

CoopHome: Why do dies wear out? What events do we look for to see this die wear? Knowing this information will help you to know what to expect to see on a worn die and to know what to look for an earlier die state die.