Worn coin vs. coin struck from worn dies -- how to tell the difference?

The other day, I noticed these photos of a Gallienus zoo coin -- the kind with a doe looking backwards -- recently sold on Facebook, which the seller described as "one of the finest Gallienus 'zoo' coins I have ever seen. As struck with a slight weakness at 4 o’clock off of extremely sharp dies with almost complete silvering."





I commented that I didn't wish to be negative, or interfere with the coin's sale. But now that he had sold the coin, I wanted to say that although the obverse portrait is clearly very nice, I didn't understand how the seller could characterize the coin as "[a]s struck," given that the neck of the doe on the coin appears to be almost entirely worn away, as well as part of its ears, along with much of the reverse legend. The seller responded that I was confusing strike with condition, and that this coin "was struck off of new obverse dies with virtually no wear and a worn reverse die, still with virtually no wear." So I asked "How can you tell that it was the reverse die that was worn, as opposed to the coin itself?" And the seller said, "wear shows differently than a weak strike or worn die even with light magnification."

But he didn't explain how it shows differently, and how one can tell the difference. Can anyone here explain how one can tell that the pictured reverse was struck from a worn reverse die, but that the coin itself shows no wear, and, therefore, can fairly be characterized as "as struck"? It really makes no practical difference to me, because I wouldn't buy a zoo coin with a reverse that looked like that regardless of the reason for its appearance. After all, in my opinion the main reason to collect the Gallienus zoo coins in the first place is the animals on the reverse, and there are plenty available at relatively inexpensive prices that depict complete animals. But I'm still curious about how to determine the difference the seller described to me.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Well done DonnaML !
I don't know either and no one has ever said.

 

In my humble OPINION, if one side of the coin is a sharp EF, it is unreasonable to attribute weaknesses on the other side to WEAR. How could one side be worn and the other not?

 

I don't know the answer .. perhaps you would expect wear to be fairly evenly distributed across the "high points" of a coin?
So if the reverse has sharp "high points" and is missing something or has a low point in a certain area then perhaps it is an issue with the die? Again just a guess... the more experienced members here will certainly have a better opinion.

Obverse lettering here as an example of a die issue?

 

Considering the manner in which "ancient" coins were struck, a weak strike should also be considered.

 

That makes practical sense, although it doesn't explain what the seller says, of course.

 

It also makes sense to me that wear on the coin itself would be more likely to show on high points rather than lower areas. (I'm not sure which way to characterize the doe's neck.) But then again, why wouldn't that be equally true of the die itself, i.e., that it would be more likely to show wear on high points?

 

Are there any other examples for comparison? The weak/missing neck detail might be due to die erosion. This is frequently the case with Athens tetradrachms struck from worn, eroded dies.

 

Some info from @dougsmit 's website:

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/grade2.html

 

I'm not intelligent enough to answer your question, but @curtislclay gave interesting informations on the subject 15 years ago on another board :
" The three phenomena are fundamentally different, so easy to distinguish.
DIE WEAR affects the sharpness of every detail of types and lettering, and is usually like a fog rising from the surface of the coin, blurring the lines where types and letters meet the surface but allowing the higher relief to stay fairly clear.
COIN WEAR is pretty much the opposite: it immediately affects all of the HIGHEST points of the design and legend but leaves the coin surface and the less raised parts of the types virtually intact. If the die was in good condition, the lines where types and legends meet the surface will still be sharp even on a worn coin.
WEAK STRIKE means the dies were not hammered hard enough to force metal into the deepest recesses of the types and legends. Usually it affects only one edge of the coin, so will be revealed by the contrast between the weakness there and the sharpness everywhere else. Moreover weak strike must inevitably affect the same area of the flan on BOTH SIDES of the coin."

 

Another consideration that occurs to me, mentioned ad nauseum on modern coins is a filled die. If grease or dirt got on one part of the die being used, it could affect only one small part of the design. The die makers were probably well skilled artisans, but the coin strikers themselves were probably often slaves who were more concerned (or their overseers were) with quantity moreso than quality.

 

It looks like the neck portion of the die was filled with something. It could be metal from previous coins. ( @Kentucky beat me to that answer by a smidge.)
I think that flow lines must be due to die wear. Metal flows when a blank is struck and metal flows from one area to another on the coin. Metal flow caused grooves that show as flow lines (at least that is my thought). The op coin has what look like flow lines in the field near the dot borders on both the obverse and reverse.
A coin that I posted recently was described as having die wear.


There are features missing on my coin vs this one from CNG, below. My guess is that die wear caused some of the missing features.

 

All I have is my own Gallienus doe reverse coin, obviously struck from different dies.

 

My Gallienus coins are too worn for me to tell.

 

There is more than one type of Die Wear, One is wear from striking coins that affects detail sharpness and one is wear from the die being abraded. An abraded die will lose its low relief design details. This usually happens when dies are being cleaned to remove debris. The OP's coin remind me of the 1937 three legged buffalo nickel the way the tops of the legs are missing on it.
The missing neck looks more like it was caused by a debris filled die due the field under the neck or where the neck should be is not smooth and being of presumably higher relief than the tops of inner two legs. JMO

 

Thanks. Makes sense to me. Just a reminder that it's not actually my coin; just a coin that I saw on Facebook. Everyone here seems to agree that the seller is correct that the missing neck results from a die problem of some kind, rather than from wear to the coin in circulation. Nonetheless -- and despite the nice obverse and the fact that, assuming the seller is accurately describing it, the coin has "almost complete silvering" -- it's still not a coin that would ever have interested me, whatever the reason for the doe having been deprived of a rather important part of her body. It's too easy to find coins that don't have that problem. Like mine (see above), even though there's nothing special about it.

 

There are two other factors I feel should be mentioned. One is when a coin is thin enough that there is not enough metal to full both dies completely. This usually shows when an area of the reverse lacks detail or is even recessed compared to the field since all the metal took the easier route into the portrait. I can not answer why some coins put more metal up than down but suspect it may have something to do with die and blank temperatures. The Numerian below is an extreme example of this. The relatively thin flan simply lacked the material with the given hammer force to fill both dies. The reverse has a dent almost pn the legs and the portrait is weak in the middle. Had the hammer been heavier, the effect may have been lessened on one side or both. This coin is actually 'as struck' since the weakness on both side were that way when the coin fell from the dies. Notice the texture in the weak spots that would have ordinarily been smoothed by the force of the strike.


Another Numerian was hit harder which spread the flan more but there is still a lack of good detail separating the ear and on the hands in the center of the reverse. I consider this coin to be 'as struck' also but neither of the coins are 'well struck'.


The second matter is an artifact of the fact that the two dies were not always parallel to each other or even perfectly flat so it is possible that part of the coin will be well struck and another part will be weak. Again using an extreme example the dupondius of Domitian below (6H or inverted die orientation) resulted in the obverse lower right and reverse upper right being well struck while the obverse upper left and reverse lower left were barely struck at all. Domitians head was poorly struck but the neck faired better while Minerva got a good head but no lower parts. I am not saying this coin has no wear but wear did not cause the lack of detail you find ugly.


Now look at the Gallienus again. The coin is weakly struck on both right sides. The obverse AVG is hardly there but the S at upper right is most telling. Compare its flat top to the sharp letters on the left side. The left side letters pushed metal all the way into the die but that S only went in half way. The V before it did slightly better while the A following it did slightly worse. Had the dies been held in proper alignment (parallel) all letters would have been one way or the other but this tilt caused an uneven and gradually changing degree of metal filling the die.

 

Thank you. Everyone's comments in this thread -- yours not least! -- have been extremely educational. I realize now, in a way that I clearly didn't before, that "as struck" can be an entirely accurate description of coins that I still find unappealing. The use of that phrase can be a way for a seller to explain a coin's defects, rather than just another way of saying "here's a perfect coin."

 

When describing ancients there are so many manufacturing flaws that should/could be mentioned in the description of a coin. Most sellers don't include these in their descriptions but try and stick to grade which is only a fraction of the story with these coins.

Here is one coin and a couple of alternative descriptions......



The up-sell.....

About as struck, from fresh dies, very little wear leading to very high levels of detail still visible on the wings and legs of the gryphon

A fuller description....

Whilst struck from what would appear to be fresh dies the coin suffers from an uneven and off-centre strike. The uneven strike has led to large areas of the obverse (from 8 o'clock to 2 o'clock) and reverse (6 o'clock to 10 o clock) being flat due to the lack of pressure in those areas. The off-centre, uneven strike combination has distorted the flan into an oval shape due to the increased pressure on half of the flan. The off-centre strike has also led to elements of the design, being off-flan, particularly the wing tips, head and foot on the gryphon. On the plus side the areas that were struck have suffered from little to no wear with lots of fine detail remaining.

I would also add this image that illustrates the strike...



This image illustrates the uneven strike. You can see the thickness of the coin varying from left (where there was little or no pressure) to right (where the main pressure from the strike took place).

 

Assuming the die axis of the OP is 6:00, I think the loss of the doe's neck is from a weak strike (4:00 on the obverse; 2:00 on the reverse). Here's my example of that coin: