Retained Cud Study - 1921-D VAM-1-H

OK, I'm going to throw a few images at you, with a little commentary. I hope others will express ideas of their own.

Here's the relevant area of the coin, lit from about 12:00 to the pic. Pay particular attention to the cracking between the stars, and what direction a shadow is cast:



A 100% crop of the original photo. Three things - first, watching the crack progression through the rim should settle whether the raised area around the rim (for this specific coin) is related to the crack itself. Second, to the right of the raised area you'll see what I believe is original, untouched edge of the planchet, unaffected by the strike. Note the lines running parallel to the rim. Third, a clearer illustration of the shadow between the two stars on the left.



Now. Here's the same area, lit from the opposite direction. Notice what the shadowed area looks like now:





No corresponding shadowing, as you'd expect from a simple raised die crack. This area is entirely separated from the rest of the die, and having "submarined," it's higher than the rest of the die on the struck coin. There are what I think to be two other pieces of the die broken loose, a larger one around the third star and a smaller one around the second. Note the point of the first star aiming downwards - it broke off with the rest of the Retained Cud, and nicely illustrates the raising of the broken piece. Look at the rim, bottom center, and at the crack coming from the date. I think you'll be able to see exactly how the break progresses into the rim, even though a couple areas are obscured.

Okay Dave.... I consider myself to be buried now.... I am convinced that that you have a retained cud(s) coin.... extremely neat... but the coin is not as neat as your photos and narrative.

The only point that I was attempting to make earlier was that this extra metal that is sometimes seen on a coin is not always from anything broken or added, but caused by die settings that do not allow planchet compression to the point of complete rim fill.... If it were I that would set these dies in the press, that is how I would want to do it.... The main and secondary devices will fill before displacement to the rims, and this will go unnoticed by the public, as the rims are already complete in the planchet.

If the dies were set closer, full displacement into the rim tops would be achieved, but this would bring us to the point of overkill resulting in increased (and unnecessary) impact stress to the dies... (A solid will only compress so far), and then something has to give, and that will be the dies (if we are lucky)... if not it could be a triangle assembly, a main arch, a cup (die stake), or a bevy of other press components that are better maintained without unnecessary violence and stress.

Some folks may consider pressure settings to be a primary suspect in a lot of stuff that they see on a coin, but that just isn't true.... (there was no dial up knob to accomplish this anyway)....

Die set up in the press was the controlling factor of just how strong or weak the strike appeared, and I am fairly convinced that a precise thickness of spacer was a measuring tool used to achieve this optimal spacing setup.

The term "pressure" is quite deceiving in this situation, (actually quite irrelevant).... the distance between the two die fields at strike position is all that really matters (considering that the planchets are annealed and are of the proper thickness)..... There is a minimum amount of pressure that is necessary to bring up the devices (obviously), but any pressure beyond that minimum is unnecessary, and is overkill... (IMO, "pressure" is overrated, overstated, and completely irrelevant to the appearance of a weakly or strongly struck coin)..... It affects neither the appearance of a sharp strike or a flat strike either.

I concede that your particular coin does not fit the scenario above, but I still maintain that not all extra metal is indicative of a crack caused Cud....

edited for punctuation.

The areas to be affected by brittleness first are the edges and surfaces of the annealed metal (especially the edges).... that is exactly why there are so many examples of peripheral cracking on these coins.... (As with the cookie analogy), radial cracks, peripheral cracks, and die sinking can all be directly attributed to heat and cooling variances in terms of time and temperature.

edited to add:

Whoops....I read your post wrongly the first time.... I doubt that the design had much to do with the annealing problems.... I mean, I do not see what it might have to do with it.... Do you have some thoughts that escape me?

Only this: Philadelphia struck no Trade dollars in 1878. However, San Francisco struck over four million of them, using Philadelphia-made dies and likely the same annealing process, with no apparent problems. Indeed, counting both Morgans and Trade dollars, San Francisco struck many millions more Major-sized coins in 1878 than did Philadelphia.

San Francisco struck Morgans equal to 93% of Philadelphia's output for 1878. There are fewer than one-half the number of 1878-S VAMs as 1878-P's, and a far lesser incidence of cracking/breaking on known VAMs.

I don't claim to know what this means, but it does make me wonder.

Most interesting stuff Dave... unfortunately, I never knew any of that fact and figure sorta stuff about vams.... I have also never closely examined an MS Morgan or a blank planchet, so this is all going to be purely speculative on my part, but:

Going back to the spacing set up between the dies.... Possibly S.F. was not pushing the envelope on the die spacing (thereby not causing undue stress to the dies)? Are the inner rims on S.F. struck Morgans more sharply squared (than they are rounded over)? I might think that a sharper edge on the inner rim could be indicative of a raw planchet rim than a rim that is rounded over from full planchet metal displacement in that area? WAG...WAG...WAG...

San Francisco, throughout Morgan production with the wild exception of 1921, can be assumed in any mintage year from the first onwards to provide the best-struck coins. S-mint dates tend to have a higher proportion of PL and DMPL examples, as well.

Were they just better at determining the ideal spacing? Did they have a guy who could create spacers to a tighter tolerance than anybody back East? More effort towards pulling and polishing dies? Did they simply care more?

Yeah, I think that the planchets would be quite uniform in that they cut to specific radial dimension using a 1 1/2" steel hole punch incorporated into the cutting press that spit them out at a rate twice that of the coins out of the coin presses. The planchets were then individually weighed to ensure a uniformity of within 1 1/2 grains (I believe it is).

So yeah, each planchet was a precision part in my opinion. The size of the planchet cut from the silver alloy strips was exactly 1 1/2", but after upsetting (and this too was done to each planchet individually) was exactly 1 15/32", so the planchet lost 1/32" in diameter through upsetting.... My guess would be that the planchet rim fit the die rim ledge fairly snugly, as anything less would defeat the purpose of upsetting in the first place.