As misunderstood as the definition of the "edge" of a coin may be, "rim" is a term that seems to cause even more confusion.
The edge, sometimes called the third side of a coin, is the surface that is perpendicular to the obverse and reverse. It represents the coin's thickness. It became especially important to design and identification with the advent of machine-struck coinage and, finally, use of the close (or "closed") collar.
The collar, which corresponds to a third die, holds the planchet to its defined form (round, octagonal, for example) and may also impart a design (lettering, grooves known as "reeding" such as seen on a dime; before introduction of the collar, edge devices were produced in a separate stage before or after striking of the coin).
This "third side," the edge, is frequently misidentified as the rim of the coin. Ask people in the street to look at the "rim" of a coin, and chances are that many or even most will look at this perpendicular surface, even though in doing so they would, in their own words, be putting the coin "on edge."
"Rim" can be a term loosely applied in even more ways.
The Coin World numismatic dictionary, found in the Coin World Almanac and on the publication's Web site, defines the rim as the "raised border around the circumference of the coin."
The Canadian Coin Reference Site on the Internet says "raised outer margin surrounding the border."
It appears the confusion extends to what constitutes the "border" of a coin. Does the rim somehow define it, or is it maybe the same thing?
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THE EARLY 20th century did away with dentilation. On this 1907 Saint-Gaudens double eagle, stars do not completely encircle the periphery.
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Coins start from blank metal disks. In most modern Mints worldwide, these disks are gradually squeezed until metal at the periphery is narrowly raised, forming a sort of lip. At this stage, the "blank" has become a finished planchet, ready for the coining press. The "lip" proper is the rim. It is an integral part of the wider outer area on the obverse or reverse side that might be called the border.
The squeezing is accomplished in an upsetting mill. This consists of a rotating wheel in the center, surrounded by a closed, stationary channel, each with grooves. The spacing between these components is gradually reduced. All the squeezing required to achieve the rims on U.S. coins may amount to about 10 thousandths of an inch.
It is this type of rim that Richard G. Doty defines in The Macmillan Encyclopedic Dictionary of Numismatics: a "thin line … where the face joins the edge." The influence of this work is apparent in the International Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Numismatics, by R. Scott Carlton, published 14 years later, in 1996, with one of the chief acknowledgments going to Doty: "the raised portion around the circumference … where the face meets the edge."
A "thin" projection is common today but other concepts, as will be seen, have been employed for the rim.
In the end, the rim serves at least three purposes, as outlined in The Modern Minting Process and How Errors and Varieties Occur, by James Wiles and Victoria Stone Moledor.
First, when the coin is being struck, metal flow will be away from the raised periphery of the planchet and into the die recesses that form the raised design elements on the struck coin.
Second, the entire raised design will be somewhat protected from wear and damage in circulation, by the height of the rim.
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1915-S PANAMA-PACIFIC International Exposition gold $50 coins have an inner border in a dash-dots pattern. On the octagonal version, shown, dolphins filled the extra outer space.
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Third, coins will stack better, placed rim to raised rim, than they would if the varying topography of the raised designs had to meet directly but randomly.
A fourth purpose can be added, at least in some cases: aesthetics. The width or devices of the rim can alter appearances subtly but decidedly.
In the beginning of U.S. coinage, dentilation of this area was commonplace, just as lettering, reeding or other decoration was used on edges. Both edge and rim markings made filing (to steal a bit of precious metal content) quickly evident and also helped prevent wear.
Dentilation is the use of ornamental devices resembling teeth or small rectangular blocks. The devices individually may be called denticles, from the Latin denticulus for a small tooth. They are also referred to as dentils, which many suppose to be an adaptation from "denticles." In fact, "dentils" is a construction term. They are small projecting rectangular blocks under a cornice, or horizontal projecting crown over an architectural work. This usage is traced to Middle French language.
"Denticles" tends to be more used in American numismatics. The term encompasses nearly square denticles to quite elongated ones, or close-set to wide apart. The inner ends may be squared off or more rounded. Some may be so nearly square and small at the same time as to resemble beads, although true beading is not a tradition in American coin art as it is in some other countries' coinages.
Curiously, the first copper cents - the 1793 Flowing Hair, Chain cents - did not have dentilation. They appear not even to have received an upset rim. Ron Guth and Jeff Garrett, in their United States Coinage: A Study by Type, blame early abandonment of this type, after only 36,103 strikes, not only on the general design but also on the "dull and flat" workmanship and lack of border protection for the shallow relief.
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AN UNUSUAL BORDER of numerous, slightly elongated bean shapes was used for the 1793 Liberty Cap half cents.
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The half cent had in retrospect what was its own curious beginning: a border of numerous, slightly elongated bean shapes. A reason for some of the seeming reticence about border designs can be seen on these first half cents. The Mint had troubles early with centering strikes. The illustration coin in the Guth-Garrett book shows a good result example: the beading is close to the edge on one side and notably more inset on the other side.
Copper coinage that followed, both cents and half cents, carried dentilation.
An unexplained curiosity occurs with one 1794 Liberty Cap cent reverse: 94 tiny stars were punched into the border, then denticles were applied, obscuring some of the stars.
When half cents were discontinued and cents made smaller in 1857, dentilation continued on the successor Flying Eagle and Indian Head cents.
In fact, dentilation became standard for all 19th-century U.S. coin borders down to coin surfaces as small as that of the half dime. The only coins lacking dentilation during this period are the silver 3-cent coins of 1851 to 1873. Even the gold dollars of 1849 to 1889 bear denticles.
The first commemorative coins followed this path, from the 1892 and 1893 World's Columbian Exposition half dollars and the 1893 Isabella quarter dollar to the 1900 Lafayette silver dollar, the 1904 Louisiana Purchase gold dollar and the 1904 Lewis and Clark gold dollar.
Almost a wholesale turnabout followed, with what Roger Burdette has called "the renaissance of American coinage" early in the 20th century.
President Theodore Roosevelt invited private sculptors Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Bela Lyon Pratt and Victor D. Brenner to begin coinage redesigns.
Saint-Gaudens produced prototypes, modified by Chief Mint Engraver Charles Barber, for a new gold $10 eagle with Liberty Head in Indian headdress, and prototypes, also tweaked, for a double eagle with a Striding Liberty figure.
Pratt produced an Indian Head design for the gold $5 and $10 coins.
Brenner produced the Lincoln cent.
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DENTILATION WAS soon adopted on all early U.S. coinage, as with the widely spaced marks on this 1794 Flowing Hair cent.
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All did away with dentilation. Pratt made an even greater innovation: his designs are raised, but recessed below the plane of the surfaces ("sunken relief"). The obverse and reverse fields simply meet the edges with nothing that could be called a rim.
Saint-Gaudens used an arc of stars on the obverse of the double eagle, but it did not completely encircle the periphery; it was an integral part of the design.
The Indian Head 5-cent coin by James E. Fraser that followed in 1913 also did away with dentilation.
Finally, the redesign of American coinage was completed in 1916 with a new Winged Liberty Head dime, by A.A. Weinman; a Standing Liberty quarter dollar, by Hermon A. MacNeil; and a Walking Liberty half dollar, also by Weinman.
None had denticles, but almost in a farewell gesture to rim decoration, MacNeil included an ornamental arrangement encircling the coin, consisting of a dash followed by two dots, endlessly repeated.
Almost simultaneously, rim decoration disappeared from the growing line of commemoratives. After a hiatus since 1904, these resumed with a multi-coin program for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915. Here too, denticles disappeared, but the dash-dots sequence that would appear on the quarter dollar encircled the inner motifs on both obverse and reverse of the gold $50 coin. On the round version, the broad rim that was thus demarked bore only bold lettering: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA / FIFTY DOLLARS. On the octagonal version, a circle enclosed these words and the added spaces to make the coin eight-sided were filled with representations of dolphins.
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STANDING LIBERTY quarter dollar used, for the border, the dash-dots pattern of the 1915-S Panama-Pacific International Exposition gold $50 coin.
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No explanation is noted for how and why the dash-dots pattern (Morse code for D) or dots-dash (for U) were used in successive years by different artists.
A decorative border appears on the 1928 Hawaiian Sesquicentennial commemorative half dollar. Sculptor Chester Beach, who rendered the design by Juliette May Fraser of Honolulu, originally depicted a long ocean wave for the obverse periphery.
Evidently to Beach's surprise, Victor K. Houston, delegate to Congress from the then territory, sought to kibitz the work. Houston had been involved, with the Commission of Fine Arts, in design suggestions even before Congress approved legislation for this coin.
Among his numerous "suggestions" after Beach had already completed his initial work, Houston unaccountably referred to this design element as a "Grecian Wave" and suggested triangles instead. Beach politely replied that what was represented was "just waves of the ocean that Capt. [James] Cook sailed. Will change if ordered, to triangles." The new peripheral triangles are easily confused with the eight triangles that were already part of the desdign, representing the main islands.
When a smaller dollar coin was under study in the 1970s, some suggestions were made for a 10- or 11-sided piece to distinguish it more readily from the quarter dollar. In the end, an 11-sided "security ridge" was decided for the border on Anthony dollars beginning in 1979.
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ANTHONY DOLLAR, introduced in 1979, has a distinguishing 11-sided border, intended to avoid confusion with the similarly sized, copper-nickel clad quarter dollar.
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When the Sacagawea dollar was introduced beginning in 2000 as a replacement for the Anthony dollar, Mint officials used various techniques to help users distinguish it from the quarter, including giving it the widest raised rim on any circulating U.S. coin used to date.
A final use of dentilation in the 1980s was a deliberate mimicking of tradition.
The United States began the American Arts Gold Arts Medallion program, marketing 1-ounce and half-ounce bullion pieces, in 1980. Collectors did not respond enthusiastically. In an effort to improve sales, J. Aron & Co. was awarded a marketing contract in 1983. That firm changed the marketing name to "U.S. Gold." Among steps to make the medals look more "coinlike" was the addition of dentilation. This program ended with adoption of the wider, and denominated legal tender, bullion coin program in 1986.
