PCGS The Standart for the Rare Coin Industry

The weakness just described in the 1941-S half dollar was due to inadequate die spacing. During the production process, technicians at the Mint endeavored to space the dies closely enough together that the coins would strike up properly, but wide enough apart that excessive die wear and breakage would not occur. If the dies were spaced too closely together, after the metal filled the deepest recesses in the dies and filled the reeding or other areas of the collar, it had to have some place to go, and would either create a wire rim around the coin (a knifelike edge caused by metal extruding between the die and collar) or would cause die breakage. The simple solution was (and still is at the various mints) to space the dies slightly further apart than the optimum. In that way if a planchet was slightly overweight it would not cause breakage, nor would a wire rim be created.

Technicians were more careless than usual at the San Francisco Mint in 1941, and the half dollar dies were spaced too far apart. Another outstanding case is the 1926-D Buffalo nickel. Probably 99 out of 100 known specimens are flatly struck. Except for their lustrous surfaces, such coins give every indication that they have been in circulation for years! Similarly, nearly all known 1926-D Standing Liberty quarters have Miss Liberty's head weakly struck.

Apropos of grading in recent times, I have heard it said that unless a coin is sharply struck, it cannot be graded any higher than MS-65. This rule seems to be in general use now. Thus, an 1892-O silver dollar, to mention an issue which is often lightly struck, cannot be graded higher than MS-65 even if it has virtually perfect fields. An extremely sharply struck 1892-O is a candidate for any and all higher grades, depending on the amount of nicks and abrasions it has received.

In other instances of weak striking, dies were created with the designs in low relief. Certain 1793 half cents have the words HALF CENT lightly impressed on the reverse, for these words were shallowly impressed into the dies. Sesquicentennial commemorative half dollars dated 1926 are often indistinct, simply because the design was executed in shallow relief without bold features. In other instances, particularly among issues of the 1790s, improperly hardened dies tended to sink in certain areas, resulting in evident weakness on coins struck from these dies.

In still other instances, the obverse and reverse dies were not completely parallel to each other, with the result that the coins of a particular variety can be weak on one side and sharp on the other. The 1794 large cent known as the "Shielded Hair" variety is very deeply impressed on the left side of the obverse and lightly impressed on the right side. United States silver dollars of the same year, 1794, are typically seen lightly impressed at the lower left of the obverse (and corresponding part of the reverse) and sharp at the opposite area of the coin - at the upper right.