I thought the diagnostics on the 16 d say all 4 die pairs had some kind of rotation. I would guess that means that in a holder the reverse shouldn't be straight up and down as long as the obverse is? Yet in this holder the coin inside seems straight aligned obverse and reverse. The number comes up in the pcgs database. Thoughts?
I never heard that all 4 die combo's show rotation. What diagnostic "expert" are you quoting? AFAIK, one die pair shows obvious rotation. It is possible that one other shows slight rotation but IMO, if it is not very obvious, it is not a helpful diagnostic tool.
All four known dies for the 1916-D dime are rotated to some extent. Here is the list: With obverse upright and straight date, and motto. Die 1 reverse is rotated to counter clockwise to 11:45 Die 2 reverse clockwise to 1:00 Die 3 reverse clockwise to 12:45 Die 4 reverse clockwise to 12:15 None of these rotations are enough to warrant it being a "minting error" though, it's minor. obverse isn't upright completely in the holder, you can see that in the date and motto. it's not die pair 1 for sure, but you'd need to get the obverse really straight to figure out if it's 12:15, 12:45, or 1:00. Die 1 has the highest mm position, Dies 2 and 3 are repunched mm, and Die 4 has the lowest mm position. this has to be reverse die 2 or 3 because it's too high to be #4, and rotated the wrong way to be #1. I'm feeling like pair #3, but without it being lined up correctly it's hard to gauge the rotation. My source of this information is Michael Fahey in write ups from about a decade ago I read on detecting counterfeits he wrote. I've always used it as a diagnostic in telling real from fake, the rotation to identify the die, then the mintmark it's supposed to have for it and it's placement on the coin and appearance.
I was just fishing my hand written notecard out of a file box when I saw John Burgess had posted the rotation info.
