Wowie 1802 Large Cent! Pre-Strike, Post-Strike, A Little Of Both?

If it were die clashing, there would be a Positive image of the clashed design (like hubbing the obverse die with the reverse die). If someone pounded a reverse on top of the obverse in some hammer or vice scheme, how would that get around the diebulge? If it were a true overstrike on a brockage error, then what else happened?

i think the most likeley explanantion for the incuse bit is post mint damage. someone smashed the reverse of a different coin into the obverse of this one using a press or a vice or some such. probably done to emulate a brockage.

Here's this (the reverse of an 1816 Large Cent)

While I agree that what we're seeing is likely intentional, I disagree with this statement. When one die whacks another die and leaves it's design, it is effectively creating a coin/hub on the other die (a "positive" image). When that die (whose clashed areas are now effectively a "hub") then strikes a coin, those areas on the coin are essentially what the original die looks like - reversed, and incuse where elements on a coin are supposed to be raised, and vice-versa. I own several coins that demonstrate this, for example a Barber dime with the portrait outline visible on the reverse from a clash, where the portrait is clearly reversed and incuse into the field, and a Canadian Voyageur dollar with an inner ear clash on the reverse, which is a raised area on the die, then incuse on the clashed die, and subsequently raised on the coin. Again, I do think what we see there is deliberate, but a die clash could conceivably produce the same thing.