VOCABULARY TERM: IMPRESSED ERROR

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V23 2020 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 23, Number 9, March 1, 2020, Article 13

Dick Johnson submitted this entry from his Encyclopedia of Coin and Medal Terminology. Thanks.

Last week's entry was on Impressed Designs, where a piece of metal or other hard object is deliberately placed onto the surface of a planchet before striking, typically to produce a "relic" medal. But when the same thing happens by mistake, it's another animal. -Editor

Impressed Error. A striking error in which foreign matter is lodged on and impressed into the surface of a struck piece. The foreign matter comes between the die and the blank before striking; and after striking it is retained below the surface but later may or may not flake off or dislodge. Thus an unusual shaped depression on a struck surface may be evidence that some object had indeed lodged there during striking. As a collector's item it is far more interesting if the impressed object is still intact.

A wide variety of foreign objects have been found impressed on coins and medals including metal scrap of all kinds, wire, staples, diechips, bits and pieces of planchets, other struck pieces, small parts of tooling, and even blanks and struck pieces of smaller diameter. An area containing a letter or detail flaking off one piece (mostly because of a lamination error) falling on a blank and impressed into a second struck piece is called a dropped letter.

Metal shards from any source landing on a blank can be impressed into a coin; more often than not these tiny shards are not retained but fly off. This condition was once called lint marks but this term is a misnomer. A more accurate term for this anomaly is impressed shard mark. Cloth and other nonmetallic items have also been impressed as well as grease which forms wavy areas (rippled surface).

In presswork, impressed errors are eliminated for the most part by blowing compressed air over both dies and blank prior to striking. Collectors' terms for this anomaly is struck-thru and indents, the latter for a blank or struck piece impressed on a piece of larger size. When an object is purposely placed on the surface of the planchet and struck this is called impressed design (see previous entry).

I've added a couple images for illustration. On the left is a Jefferson nickel which had been struck through cloth; on the right is a Bicentennial Eisenhower dollar with an impressed shard mark. I had a hard time finding an image of a coin where the foreign object was still present. Can anyone furnish one? -Editor

Looking for the meaning of a numismatic word, or the description of a term? Try the Newman Numismatic Portal's Numismatic Dictionary at: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/dictionary

Or if you would like a printed copy of the complete Encyclopedia, it is available. There are 1,854 terms, on 678 pages, in The Encyclopedia of Coin and Medal Technology. Even running two a week would require more than 19 years to publish them all. If you would like an advance draft of this vital reference work it may be obtained from the author for your check of $50 sent postpaid. Dick Johnson, 139 Thompson Drive, Torrington, CT 06790.