what caused this?

[CascadeChris]

I'm curious why people haven't seemingly run across these "melted dates" before. I see them quite often, especially on the early S's with 82s being the most frequent if I had to guess. So it's not a manifestation of hub doubling?

[DHalladay]

I'm curious why people haven't seemingly run across these "melted dates" before. I see them quite often, especially on the early S's with 82s being the most frequent if I had to guess. So it's not a manifestation of hub doubling?

Chris: Bravo! This one is an 1882-S.

[vamsterdam]

I see this often on 1880-82s dollars. I see it as a combination of metal expansion towards the collar, the dies coming apart too slowly, while the coin is being ejected. I may have part of my sequence out of order but it is obvious that the metal is being “smeared” or pushed outward on the highest points. I still see it as a form of machine doubling damage but even MDD can be interesting at times.

[Geseas]

I can visualize that happening in a mechanical device. Thanks for insight.

[HawkeEye]

I believe Roger hit it, but we need other coins to validate his hypothesis. Anyone have another?

[messydesk]

This shows up a lot on 81-S and 82-S, and can make them a nightmare to attribute, especially when as severe as the coin shown. The sheared date is caused by the coin being in contact with the hammer die for too long while being ejected by the feed fingers. It is always on the "northern" edges of the digits, just like the feed finger scrapes on the reverse are always vertical and on the upper reverse. The root cause was likely something in one of the presses being ill-fitting.

[fogie]

Fine tuning on the coining press - ejection happening before the hammer die clears the just struck coin. While sorta cool looking it really screws with being able to see doubling.

[Albannach]

If that's a philly coin, may I see LFCP's pls. Obv and rev.