Missing Horizontal line on shield

[Mario]

Hello!

New to the Forum. 

What are people thoughts on missing horizontal line. 

Apologies if the image as low resolution 

I'm trying to understand how to load pictures within the limit.

Cheers 

[Rob]

Weak patches can be due to various things. Wear is the most obvious, but also blocked dies or soft strikes. If it is an area of lower relief, then it is usually something filling the die. It may be metal dust or could also be grease. Unused dies are stored in grease to prevent rusting, and sometimes this is not fully removed prior to use. Because the grease will not compress under pressure, the flan is not struck up at this point. 

[Mario]

6 minutes ago, Rob said:

Weak patches can be due to various things. Wear is the most obvious, but also blocked dies or soft strikes. If it is an area of lower relief, then it is usually something filling the die. It may be metal dust or could also be grease. Unused dies are stored in grease to prevent rusting, and sometimes this is not fully removed prior to use. Because the grease will not compress under pressure, the flan is not struck up at this point. 

Thanks for your reply Rob, and I understand that , but if that's the case why do you see the vertical lines going to the bottom horizontal line when the top line is missing?

I hope you understand what I'm trying to explain. 

[Rob]

Just a worn die? Wear is rarely completely even. Logically, I would expect the first point of contact to show the greatest die wear, but then that assumes the die is equally hard across the face - which isn't a given. 

[jelida]

9 hours ago, Mario said:

Thanks for your reply Rob, and I understand that , but if that's the case why do you see the vertical lines going to the bottom horizontal line when the top line is missing?

I hope you understand what I'm trying to explain. 

That is interesting, I wonder whether a partly filled die could have been repaired by re-engraving the vertical lines? What coin is this? It might be possible to track the die fill and repair  by looking at other examples .

Jerry

[Mario]

28 minutes ago, jelida said:

That is interesting, I wonder whether a partly filled die could have been repaired by re-engraving the vertical lines? What coin is this? It might be possible to track the die fill and repair  by looking at other examples .

Jerry

Thanks for your reply Jerry! 

Your explanation makes more sense to me. 

This is from a 1893 reverse N penny, yes most probably you will be able to see it in other 1893 pennies. 

Cheers 

[Paddy]

My 1893 penny shows the same feature:

[jelida]

So do my 1893 over 2 pennies (all three) but not my plain 1893's.

Jerry

[Paddy]

Interesting. My 1893 is not 3 over 2:

[jelida]

5 minutes ago, Paddy said:

Interesting. My 1893 is not 3 over 2:

Yet it looks the same flaw. Not sure what to make of that. Does yours have the bulge under the upper loop of the ‘3’ that you see on 3/2 coins?

Jerry

[Paddy]

Not as far as I can see. (I am notoriously bad at spotting variations!):

[jelida]

No, I can’t see it either. I wonder whether this flaw was on a master that was used to make several dies/dates over the 1892 to 93 period. You have a nice doubled inner circle to the lower left of the date too! (Spellcheck initially converted ‘doubled inner’ to ‘double dinner’ , quite a nice interpretation I thought!).

Jerry

[Mario]

I think, my is just a normal 3.

[Paddy]

Neither my 1892 or 1894 show any sign of the missing bar.

Interesting the double inner circle - I hadn't noticed that before. As I suggested, I am blind to variations until someone rubs my nose in it!

[secret santa]

I've just looked at 8 photos of 1893 over 2 and they all feature that weakness in the horizontal bar.

[jelida]

Well, there really ought to be some 1892’s with the flaw, unless there was just a single batch of flawed 1892 dies which were all updated into the progression of  altered ‘3’s including the clear ‘ 3/2’ that Gouby shows in detail. Or the ‘3/2’ could be regarded as a ‘2/3’,  an 1893 die mis-repaired using a ‘2’ punch, which I do not favour. Either way I feel that there must have been a flawed master die to enable the missing line to occur on dies producing both overstrike and normal coins.

Jerry

[SilverAge3]

I have an 1892 & 94, but no 93 yet. Anyhow, this isn't on my 92 or 94. I'll try to share my 92 

[Peckris 2]

On 2/21/2024 at 1:13 PM, Mario said:

I think, my is just a normal 3.

that looks as though it COULD be a 3/2?

[PWA 1967]

An 1893 over 2 i had ,tried to make the shield larger but would not allow me to post the picture 😀

[jelida]

29 minutes ago, PWA 1967 said:

An 1893 over 2 i had ,tried to make the shield larger but would not allow me to post the picture 😀

Yes, yours has the missing line too Pete.  Seems to be pretty much a feature of all 3/2’s,  possibly many of the minor degree dies Gouby shows too. 
I see that Richard’s website has been updated to include this feature,  though I don’t think that the filled die repair and the overstrike are directly associated in that 1893 coins that are clearly not overstrikes, even minimally displayed, can also have the line flaw.

Jerry

Edited February 27, 2024 by jelida
Typo and addition

[Rob]

I got the wrong end of the stick with the initial post. I took the missing horizontal bit to be the weakness in the right arm of St. George's cross - where the arrow was pointing. Jerry's point makes sense.

FWIW, none of the 92s here have a missing line.

[blakeyboy]

Rob, you just did this forum section's 100,000th posting....