INTRODUCTION TO THE MAY ARTICLE OF THE MONTH

Thanks to Stella Hackel, we Ike people do not have the comprehensive Mint Records that the Van Allen and Mallis had with which to organize their research and writing on the Morgan and Peace Dollar Series.

In the absence of Mint Records it is natural that our understanding of the minting of the Eisenhower Dollar Coin will advance by small steps as proffered theories are tested over time.

The almost overwhelming number of 1971-S Ike Silver Dollar Doubled Dies is a case in point. A little over a decade ago these Ikes were carefully cataloged by two Ike experts, with somewhat differing results.

Wexler cataloged his Ikes by clustering together those with similar patterns of doubling. Brian Allen recently authored a monograph in which he clustered 1971-S double die Ikes with similar patterns of obverse doubling under presumed up-line doubled master dies and doubled working hubs to which he assigned hypothetical catalog numbers.

Tom Kalantzis even more recently reported on his thinking (and Wexler’s) that the groups of similarly doubled 71-S Ikes could and should be linked to hypothetical but specifically cataloged up-line doubled working hubs.

The Ike Group has been moving all along in a somewhat different direction, focusing on the more dramatically doubled Ikes which we are calling “Collectible” while not ignoring the fact that we, too, recognize there are “Families” of Ikes with similar patterns of doubling.

Lastly, Bill Sanders, our resident tool and die expert, for many more than nine months, has been gestating a new explanation of Families of doubled die Ikes with similar patterns of doubling, an explanation that does not require any reference to doubled up-line hubs or dies.

For our May Articles of the Month, we are publishing both Tom’s article (which first appeared in a 2010 issue of NCADD’s publication The Hub (with Tom’s permission), and Bill’s article on his explanation of our Families of similarly doubled die Ikes.

After you’re carefully read both articles, please return to this paragraph, it likely will make no sense to you now: both articles force us to think and re-think old notions and both are moving in the same direction, attempting to make sense by thinking out of the box. One key difference, however, is Tom’s implication that the families of similar Ike doubled dies were or could have been hubbed one at a time, even at different times as production demands dictated. Bill’s explanation, on the other hand is based on a key feature of the Mint’s hubbing procedures documented by Margolis and Weinberg (and others): working dies were repetitively hubbed and annealed in groups of roughly 25 at a time.

Fortunately we are not concerned with who may be right and who may be wrong: advancing the flag is a process dependent on authors willing to step outside their comfort zones in order to explore new possibilities. We are fortunate to have two such here and now. Rob

FAMILIES OF SIMILAR DOUBLED DIE IKES CAN BE EXPLAINED BY HOW THEY WERE HUBBED

Sanders, Ike Group - draft 8 - copyright 6 May 2010

INTRODUCTION

The Eisenhower Dollar doubled die Coins have proven challenging to understand and to catalog. Wiles and Wexler created the first catalogs based on individual examples that could be distinguished one from another, even if the differences at times were minor.

The present trend is to clump together and catalog similar doubled die Ikes by an assumed up-line doubled working hub (or master die?), reducing the number of separately cataloged 1971-S Silver doubled die Ikes from well over 100 to perhaps a dozen. In other words, “strikingly similar” groups of doubled die Ikes are grouped together and cataloged with one number created to represent an assumed progenitor up-line doubled working hub.

The Ike Group is moving in a different direction. We will continue to focus on the individual doubled die Ikes even as we recognize “Families” of Ike doubled dies that clearly have very similar patterns of doubling. We are not particularly interested in cataloging assumed up-line doubled working hubs, since the identification of these will always be hypothetical. Collectors do not collect theoretical doubled working hubs! Doubled working hubs do not exist in the present and thus remain hypothetical constructs. Doubled Die Collectors are used to collecting interesting individual doubled die coins and these should continue to remain the primary focus of Ike doubled die collecting.

The Ike Group will identify clusters of Ikes with very similar patterns of doubling as families. We will catalog in each family the catalog number of the prominent members so the primary reference will always be to a specific working doubled die. Thus, in a “Family” of very similar doubled die Ikes, such as Wexler’s cataloged 1971-S Ike Proof DDO-008, DDO-009, DDO-010 and DDO-011, we will catalog DDO-010 (for example) as “71-S SP IG Collectible Family 001–010Wexler” thereby referencing a specific working Die which one of the other authorities have catalogued previously. Our intent is to present pictures and definitions of the doubled die Eisenhower dollars we believe are the most collectible. This compiled collection of data, with thorough cross referencing to other catalogs, will allow the Ike Group to present a clear definition of each doubled die Ike we deem collectible. Our hope is to standardize the TPG’s understanding of each collectible coin.

“But”, you say, “Surely all the ‘Families’ of Ikes with nearly identical doubling came from a single up-line doubled working hub? That’s how the Mint works isn’t it, master hub to master die to working hub to working die? So why not make up a catalog number for that presumed doubled working hub?”

Ah, grasshopper, if numismatics were only that simple. Forgive us if we shatter glass and break bones, but below we present another mechanism that could explain the families of similar Ike doubled dies. Our mechanism is simply the specifics of how working dies are made.

THE HYDRAULIC PRESS, MULTIPLE HUBBINGS WITH DIFFERENT WORKING HUBS, ANEALLINGS IN GROUPS BETWEEN EACH HUBBING, BLANKING POINTS FOR XY ALIGNMENTS, ROTATIONAL ALIGNMENTS BY EYE, AND THE FLOAT: how these interactive hubbing variables could create our families of similar Ike doubled dies.

Let’s break this down into bite-sized bits:

1. Ike working dies were likely hubbed five times to progressively “sink” the full image into the die. It is very likely that the early hubbings (these move the most die steel and thus put the most stress and wear on the working hub) would have been carried out by the most tired of working hubs, or even working hubs that had been modified specifically for the first two or three hubbings. The last two hubbings were likely carried out by the sharpest (newest) working hub in order to impart the sharpest possible image to the working dies. Every die shop in the country would have used this approach to extend the life of their working hubs and get the most out of them.

2. A slow hydraulic press was used instead of a much faster coining-type mechanical press for many reasons including the massive forces required for hubbing and the slower speed required to minimize work hardening. Perhaps the most critical benefit of slow “squeezing” was giving the working die the chance to self-align with the working hub, to “slide into position” for perfect alignment with the working hub. Called “the float”, this mechanism required a tiny but significant amount of free play in the mounting of the working die being hubbed. Without the float it would be nearly impossible to align die and hub accurately enough to prevent wholesale doubling on virtually every die.

3. Due to the “work hardening” induced by each partial hubbing, the working die to-be was re-softened (annealed) after each squeeze so subsequent hubbing(s) wouldn’t damage the die. Annealing was done in groups of 25 dies with exacting attention to accurate and very gradual heating and cooling. But even the best techniques would inevitably cause some distortion to some of dies. Remember also that all such operations are compromises between the ideal and the practical (cost and time factors). We think the Mint may have outsourced annealing of its larger dies to specialty shops because this annealing was so highly technical and difficult. It is unlikely the Mint had that capability in house. Whether in house or outsourced, however, annealing would have been a lengthy procedure with a one to three week turn-around if out-sourced and 5 to 10 days if done in house. The die shop probably re-hubbed the newly annealed working dies from their annealing basket of 25, in succession, after “setting-up” the operation each time the dies came back from heat treatment.

(From The Error Coin Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition, Arnold Margolis, NLG and

Fred Weinberg, NLG, permission pending, pages 81-82)

4. The Mint’s die shop would have used tool and die practices universally employed in die shops of that era so what follows is probably very close to the Philadelphia Mint’s procedures. The hydraulic press is oriented vertically with the working die placed in a holder (the “nest”) on the base of the press. One simple holder is a hole drilled in a plate into which the working die is seated, that hole being slightly larger than the base of the die, perhaps .002” larger, providing the all-important “float” necessary for perfect hub-die alignment.

5. Assuming such a plate was used, it would have been placed on the base of the press with “banking points” to fix x,y orientation (“transitional x,y positioning”). “Banking” refers quite literally to adjustable banks up against which the plate would be secured. Here we have our first mechanism that could potentially introduce transitional doubling (linear, not rotational) into a working die: if the base somehow is not accurately located in X-Y orientation to an extent beyond that which the float could correct, we would have “transitional” doubling of that working die. By the way, we’ll assume that the working hub secured in the arm of the press (the “ram”) is fixed in place, even though some small amount of free play in the ram is unavoidable.

6. In addition, the working die had to be placed in the nest with the correct rotational orientation. This was done by eye, aided by penciled or inscribed lines on the working die and working hub (most likely a scribed line on the die positioning fixture would be “lined-up” with a characteristic on the face of the die). As long as the float could correct the rotational alignment, it was not necessary to have perfect alignment. But if the die worker’s by-eye alignment was off by more than could be corrected by float, one would create rotational doubling on the working die being hubbed. (I believe a later advance used tapered pins for rotational alignment but not during this time period.)

7. An important factor that could have interfered with the necessary float required to create perfect hub-die alignment was the state of the working die’s partial image. Not only could it have been somewhat distorted from annealing, its existing partial “image” was likely created by a more tired, worn, even modified working hub than is now in the ram. Float could have been partially or totally impeded if hub and die could not accurately “seat”, resulting in hub and die jamming and thus producing a doubled die. This potential systems error could conceivably account for families of similarly doubled working dies.

8. It’s logical that the limited number of working hubs being used to hub a far greater number of working dies would receive careful scrutiny before being used to hub working dies. Careful scrutiny of the Working hubs would have been required to prevent wasting all the effort and expense making the required multitude of working dies. It is perhaps even a stretch to assume that enough theoretically doubled working hubs escaped inspection and detection to account for the known families of similarly doubled working dies.

9. It may be helpful to realize just how small is the x,y or rotational error responsible for even the largest “spreads” one finds on doubled die Ikes. Here is a star from the reverse of Tom Kalantzis’s magnificent 1971-S SP DDE-005 (used with permission):

Yet this spread, measured in thousandths of an inch, has a displacement of approx. 0.002 of an inch or ½ the diameter of a human hair. In rotational terms, 1.0 degree of rotation will cause a movement of 0.017 of an inch, 1 inch out from the pivot point. So we are looking at (for a 1.5 inch diameter Ike with the pivot point at the center) roughly 1.5/2 times 0.017 = 0.013 per degree of rotation. The 0.002 displacement we see in Tom’s Ike would require 0.002/0.013 = 0.0154 degrees, roughly 1/16 of one degree of rotation about the center of the coin. However dramatic, even the “biggest” Ike doubled dies have only tiny transitional or rotational displacements between hubbings.

10. Here’s a summary to wrap up this little visit to the horizon*. Unlike the die set held in fixed position in a coin press, the nesting mechanism by which the working dies are hubbed is x,y and rotationally oriented, opening a door to both transitional (linear) and rotational doubling. in addition we have a real possibility that the sharper hub being used on the 4^th and 5^th squeezes might not align perfectly with the working hub through float. This opens the door to another mechanism for doubling of individual working dies and for groups of working dies. In other words, the best looking doubled die Ikes could have been produced by a sharp or new working hub in the 4^th or 5^th hubbing coupled with transitional or rotational repositioning system errors that could easily be repetitive. We do not need to limit our thinking to just hypothetical up-line doubled working hubs to explain families of similar looking doubled die Ikes.

The Ike Group will continue to focus on identifiable “Collectible” doubled die Ikes by looking for doubled die Ikes with generous patterns of doubling and whenever possible for those with distinct markers that can securely identify an individual doubled working die. But just as truck and auto driving instructors preach “horizon driving”, the Ike Group will continue to scan the horizon* for the bigger picture even as we focus on the road immediately ahead.

*Rob is thinking of ending our book with a section called “On the Horizon” in which a number of avant-garde topics will be briefly presented including this one, hence the references to the horizon and to horizon driving.

The Eisenhower Working Hub Doubled Die

By Thomas Kalantzis

Not too long ago, I sent in to ANACS to be slabbed what I thought was a DDO-029. When the coin came back with no DDO on the label and a note from them saying it was WAY OFF, I was shocked. My first thought was that they had messed up. Then I re-looked at the old WDDO-029 and realized that it was the old WDDO-037, marker and all! What a blunder! I sent it back to ANACS, this time as WDDO-037, and that is how it came back.

At that point I went to work trying to see why WDDO-029 and WDDO-037 look alike, as well as why WDDO-009 and WDDO-010 and many others are so much alike, as all of us IKE collectors have realized by now. Many of us feel not enough information has been given and find ourselves throwing up our arms in frustration. Some of us got disgusted enough to give up and began collecting other denominations.

The Nov./Dec. 2008 issue of NCADD’s (National Collectors Association of Die Doubling) publication, The HUB, featured an article by Brian Allen titled “1971-S Doubled Die Obverses from The Authoritative Reference on Eisenhower Dollars.” Because of this work concerning Brian’s master die theory, John Wexler said he could not go on with a second edition of The Authoritative Reference on Eisenhower Dollars at this time because more study is needed.

I set out to answer these questions for myself as well as for my fellow collectors. I posed the question Why do the doubled die Ikes look so much alike? to John Wexler who tied up the loose ends that kept me off to the left or the right in the past and gave me the answer I had not realized.

John said (and he has sent me some of his work for me to follow) he has 111 IKE obverse doubled dies with die numbers for the 1971-S Proof and Business Strike IKEs at this time and I am sure the count will go up. According to John, the reason we see so many of the same looking DDOs and DDRs is in the HUBBING. (Some are Master Die DDOs; most are Working Hub DDOs.)

I asked John could the reason they look so much the same be due to a Mint worker just grabbing any of the hubs when building up the impression and, if out of order, could that cause doubling? John emailed that doubling occurred during the hubs’ annealing process. Doubling would result if a strike was made with incorrect pressure or if it was misaligned. That is the culprit for working hub doubling. I have thought about this NEW information and have concluded I do agree with John Wexler’s findings.

It is known picking a different hub to work with out of order can still affect the outcome. Let’s talk about this a bit more to prove this study. If, for example, the Mint worker used a weakly struck hub in the final annealing process, the coin will appear weakly struck. If he used a well-struck hub, the resulting coin will look sharp and crisp. That’s one reason we have both weak and sharp-looking examples. Another reason is the Mint practice of overusing the working dies. Yet another reason is the polishing and fine sanding done as needed by the Mint to help extend the life of the working die as well as to hide defects and clashes. When the Mint worker is done with this die treatment, the planchet (coin) can have a frosted look on the raised central devices and to a lesser degree on the lettering and date digits.

The 1971-D has seen many clashes with nicknames like “Talon Head” and “Clash Eye.” A clash happens when one die strikes another without a planchet in place. Images transfer from obverse die to reverse die and visa versa. The Denver Mint has by far the most reported clashed die representatives. Because of that fact, the Denver Mint workers became artists. When they finished cleaning up a die, some had a semi-proof-like finish. All these tricks of the trade were needed to produce more coins from the dies making production numbers more realizable. The trouble with die life extension is we lose detail on the coin resulting in a less attractive coin.

The Ike Study

The example used for this study is John Wexler’s WDDO-008 which CONECA lists as DDO-003 and Cherrypickers lists as FS-15.8.

WDDO-008 and the old WDDO-009 (now WH8) and the old WDDO-010 (now WH8) are from the same working hub.

First, the WDDO-008 working die was created from a particular working hub. After transferring the image to a working die, every coin planchet struck by this working die produced the well-known and sought after WDDO-008.

For a moment, think about all the problems the Mint had and add ones not discussed. Early on they had BIG problems to work through. Question, how many WDDO-008s are there or that have been found so far? Very few which is one reason this doubled die is so pricey. Another reason for its price is its wide spread. After that one, the Mint made sure the set screw (the culprit that made the rotation and spread of that doubled die) was kept tight.

Second, both the WDDO-009 and WDDO-010 (old descriptions) have been changed to WDDO-WH8. The WH refers to Working Hub. In the case of the WDDO-009 and WDDO-010, both are the result of the need to create another working die to keep up the production numbers mandated by Congress.

The same working hub used to make WDDO-008 was used in the making of the old numbers WDDO-009 and WDDO-010. John Wexler has isolated the working hub for all three. In the future, the Wexler attribution number for the WDDO-008 will stay the same; however, the old WDDO-009 and WDDO-010 will both be listed as WDDO-WH8 since both are the result of using the original WDDO-008 working hub.

So, does this mean all my WDDO-009s (WDDO-WH8) are not doubled? Of course they’re doubled. Does it mean they not RARE doubled dies? Go ahead and find one, or even better, how many WDDO-009s or WDDO-010s do you have? I have 3 or 4 WDDO-009s and no WDDO-010s. I wondered why the grading companies or the authenticator missed it. As it turns out, it was most likely a judgment call as all doubled dies are judged by their details.

As you can see, the formerly listed WDDO-009 and WDDO-010 do look alike and are very similar to WDDO-008. The Mint used the same working hub they used for WDDO-008, but they messed up yet again with pressure, misalignment, or tilt being the culprit this time. Because the pressure, misalignment, or tilt was off, the process gave us similar, yet different-looking, doubled dies, in this case, the formerly listed WDDO-009 and WDDO-010. This is why the new description will read WDDO-WH8 for the old WDDO-009 and WDDO-010. It separates the working die WDDO-008 from the working hub doubled dies WDDO-009 and WDDO-010, both having the NEW description WDDO-WH8! All three came from the same original hub. This answers the question why the same looking doubled die is found on so many IKEs.

In closing, let’s touch on the value of the DDO versus the WH-DDO. The reason so many working dies were needed was that the working die did not last as long as was needed to keep up with production quotas. The second, third, and so on new working dies had the same issues as the original die with the addition of more doubling as well as less or slightly different looking doubling. When they created another working die from the original working hub, because of variable pressure, misalignment, or tilt, similar looking doubled dies were created. Replacement working dies were subjected to the same polishing and puff jobs as the originals. Keeping this in mind, the reason we see so few examples of any DDO and WH-DDO is because the dies did not last long. The WH-DDO and WH-DDR saw limited use and are seen a bit more often than the original DDO or DDR they are associated with; the word ‘more” meaning not many, as they are all very hard to find.

This study has given us another view and reason why there are so few examples of Proof doubled die IKEs, so go ahead and collect them. They are all very hard to find and worthy of any IKE doubled die collection.

I would like to thank John Wexler, attributor and vice-president of NCADD, for the information needed to bring to an end this long-standing issue and to John Bordner, president of NCADD, for his guidance and help.

I am the director of information and shows in the northeast for NCADD. If anyone needs any questions answered, just ask. I am user friendly. I can be contacted via email at: t9k9o9@comcast.net

If you would like more information about NCADD or are interested in joining the club, I would be glad to help if needed. An easy way to get a membership application is to go to the NCADD website http://ncadd98.org/ and download the application. Fill it out and add: Tom K. sent me!