1939 DDO?

Dick · Expert Member

Bob, the coins are ready, and pkged. If they don't go tomorrow, they will Monday. Thanks! I sent you a PM.
Dick

Bob P · Site Admin

Thanks Dick, I will let you know when they get here.

wavysteps2003 · Expert Member

We at times get into what is called "a one track mind set" on what has or did happen. The split tail on the 9 of the date is one example of this.

First, please do not get me wrong, I am not saying anyone is incorrect in calling this a master doubled die and in fact, it may just be that.

However, there is another possibility and if you think it through, you can see the logic in it. We must remember that the last two digits of the date were changed each year by abrading the master hub from the previous year and making a new master die, without the last two digits, which were then added. Then from there, a new master hub was made with master dies, working hubs and working dies to follow.

The alternate thinking to master die doubling on a digit in the date is a second or stutter punching of that digit. This is where the digit punch is tapped to set it into the master die and then tapped again to add depth to the strike. Any deviation from the first strike to the second strike would produce doubling. This is what happened to countless RPMs and also may have happened with some doubling on single digits of the date. On the master die, I would except the most expert of die setters to have the job of placing the last two digits, so the degree of mistakes would no where approach what happened ith the mint marks.

At tiimes it is a necessity to "think out side the box", to bring alternate ideas to the table, so that we do not get to believing something that is not poosibely true.

A fine example of this was the belief that the single squeeze process bagan in the year 1997. We now know this to be not true, for the MINT, in its own words, stated that they were experimenting with this type hubbing even before 1986. Yet, the mis-conception, even today, persists.

For those of you who have not read that report, here it is.

"Single Squeeze Hubbing. During FY86, the Mint further developed a new process for a key aspect of die manufacturing., the hubbing of dies in a single squeeze. When implemented, this will eliminate intermediate annealing and cleaning and the second hubbing operation. It will also avoid the possibility of hub-doubling errors caused by misalignment of the second squeeze. The new process has been used for master dies and working hubs and is in pilot testing for production dies"

As you can see, there are a couple of key words that even I have overlooked before and now recognize the meaning. Since this report covers from October 1985 to October 1986, the word further, which is highlighted, means that the MINT was possibly expermenting with this system in FY1985, or as early as October 1984. The other key word is "avoid" and if I read that statement correctly, it says nothing about the single squeeze hubbing system NOT producing doubled dies.

Well I did it again; start out on one subject and change to another. Anyway, when you do run across something like the doubling on the 9 digit, think of different ways that it could happen; who knows where it could lead you.

BJ Neff