Leaderboard

The sheets are rolled to reduce them to the correct thickness, but whether it is from creating a void through folding material into the sheet, or rolling at the wrong temperature, I'm not certain, but it can lead to layering within the sheet from which the blanks are cut. When the blank is struck it then starts to break apart. e.g. A brass 3d which clearly had a void contained within the blank, which subsequently fell apart because it was only held together at the extremities, as defined by the toning. And the edge of the F689A pattern halfpenny showing lamination along the edge. The same thing is seen on other decimal patterns, but is notably prevalent on flans that were thinner than the old copper ones, which is why the issue may have been with force used to strike the coins and or metal composition. So many variables.

Especially at the James Watt factory. They were way behind contract and the RM was forced to sub contract some limited work to the Heaton mint. Maybe they should have used them from the start as they were much more efficient.

That's it Mike - hit 'em with all you've got!!!!!

Eggs Benedict is a dish best served on the hubcap from a '57 Austin Cambridge ... because there's no plates like chrome for the Hollandaise

Lamination of the thinner flans appeared to be an issue with the new bronze coins as many of the decimal patterns struck between 1857 and 1859 suffered from this. Whether it was due to sheet preparation, metal mix, force applied when struck, or something else - I'm not certain, but I'm sure that was one reason for the delay in production. As for the rotation in die axis, this is often seen on all things produced using the Soho apparatus; both at Soho on the George III coppers, and on Tower mint products which used Soho presses from 1816 to 1882. Without knowing the full mechanical operation of the equipment, I can only guess at whether it is due to inadequate clamping of a die, misalignment of the clamped dies, wear to a die locating socket, general slack overall tolerances, or something else.