The Presidential dollars program, which begins in 2007, will not only herald the debut of such luminaries as Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan to U.S. coinage, but is significant for something many citizens may not notice – lettering on the edge.
Every coin has three sides, though few people think of a coin as a three-sided object. But the edge of the coin often tells the most interesting story and is ripe for rediscovery.
Edge lettering (and other devices like reeding) were a practical answer to an age-old problem: coin clipping. Before minters began marking the edge with distinctive designs, it was easy and profitable to clip or shave small pieces of metal from silver and gold coins. Since the coins in those days were worth their weight in the metal of which they were struck, they could be devalued or made worthless if too much of their metal was whittled away.
Giving a silver or gold coin an edge design made it harder for criminals to remove metal from the edge the coin and later pass it as containing its full measure of metal.
A "clip" is the accurate way to refer to a coin that has been damaged and forever marred by the removal of its metal. (An "incomplete planchet" error is the term that applies to coins created by the Mint that are not round, complete or otherwise whole when struck. Error collectors are aware that "clipped planchet" is the most common name for this error, though "incomplete planchet" is a more accurate description.)
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TWO SIZES OF LETTERING were used on the 1794 Liberty Cap half cents, as illustrated by the Large Edge Letters variety, left, and the Small Edge Letters variety, right. The obverse and reverse shown are used to illustrate the design type; three obverse dies and four reverse dies were used to strike 1794 Liberty Cap half cents. The fourth reverse has a different style wreath than that illustrated. A special technique was used to photograph the edge.
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As early as 1658, the English government under Oliver Cromwell issued crown and half-crown coins with raised edge lettering, a practice to continue through the reign of George IV.
The first use of edge lettering on a U.S. coin was on one of the first coins, the 1793 Liberty Cap half cent. The edge is lettered, and states TWO HUNDRED FOR A DOLLAR.
At that time, placing edge devices on coins added a great deal of time to the coin production process.
Then, workers at the first Philadelphia Mint struck coins on manual-powered screw presses. Each of the presses housed a single pair of dies, one obverse and one reverse. The hammer (upper) die was attached to a movable vertical column much like that on the planchet-cutting press. The anvil (lower) die was fixed into place.
At first, a press operator placed a planchet onto the anvil die by hand. Shortly after the Mint opened, Adam Eckfeldt invented a feed mechanism. Planchets were fed onto the anvil die by a tube loaded with the blanks. The mechanism was safer for the press operator, who could easily lose a finger in the press if the dies came down on his hand while placing a planchet or removing a coin.
The earliest U.S. coins were struck inside an open collar that surrounded the dies loosely and prevented the edges (including those with edge lettering and other decorative edge devices) from being crushed, until the 1830s, when the close collar was introduced gradually. The open collar, however, still restrained outward metal flow, though not as well as modern close collars do.
Edging out
The machine used to impart edge lettering on those earliest coins was called a "Castaing machine," named after Frenchman Jean Castaing. In the 1680s, Castaing made improvements to a machine created earlier in the London Mint by Pierre (or Peter) Blondeau.
The milling machine was man-powered, with one operator needed for each machine, and imparted edge devices before the coins were struck.
Perhaps the best explanation of how a Castaing device works can be found in The U.S. Mint and Coinage by Don Taxay.
"This ingenious machine was built on a table and consisted primarily of two parallel bars, one fixed and one movable, each containing half the device," Taxay writes. "The movable bar was grooved at the top, and slid along a thin rail. The operator placed two planchets between the bars and gave the crank a partial turn. This rotated a cog which worked along the rack, thrusting the moveable bar forward sufficiently to entirely rotate the planchets. The distance between the two bars could be adjusted by means of two large screws which held the fixed bar."
Sometimes an error would occur when placing the lettering on the coins. Slippage of the edge-lettering equipment could produce a partial or complete overlapping of words on the coin. A half dollar, for example, with such a garbled edge inscription as FIFTY CENTS ORLF A DOLLAR is a product of slippage, and is definitely a Mint error. Such overlapped letters on the edge of the Capped Bust half dollar are common.
The Castaing device was a very time-consuming way to add edge devices to coins. Taxay estimated no more than 10,000 coins per day could be milled. Moreover, since the edge devices were put on the planchets before they were struck, the words had to be incuse (lowered), to prevent their removal or damage during the strike.
Several denominations
Edge inscriptions were used on several thicker denominations of U.S. coins: half cents, cents, half dollars and dollars. Edge inscriptions were impractical on thinner denominations like the half dime, dime or quarter dollar.
The Liberty Cap Left half cent and Liberty Cap Right half cent both feature edge lettering that reads TWO HUNDRED FOR A DOLLAR. Half cents featured lettered edges until 1797, when the Mint decided to skip adding an edge device to these coins and to cents. Lettering reads ONE HUNDRED FOR A DOLLAR on the Flowing Hair, Chain cents, the Flowing Hair, Wreath cents and the Liberty Cap cents that have edge lettering.
Flowing Hair half dollars (1794 to 1795), Draped Bust half dollars (1796 to 1807) and Capped Bust half dollars (1807 to 1836) feature the words FIFTY CENTS OR HALF A DOLLAR on their edges.
The Flowing Hair dollars (1794 to 1795) and the Draped Bust dollars (dated 1795 to 1803) both feature a lettered edge that reads HUNDRED CENTS ONE DOLLAR OR UNIT. (The Coinage Act of April 2, 1792, designated the largest silver coin alternatively as "Dollars or Units.")
The lettered edges were dropped from the half cents and cents in 1800 and 1808, respectively. They continued to be used on silver dollars until production of that denomination stopped in 1804 (when some Draped Bust dollars of earlier dates were produced).
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THE UNCIRCULATED 1992-D Olympic dollar coin is both reeded and lettered on its edge. Reeding was added during striking, and the edge lettering was added later. The coin has ~ XXV OLYMPIAD ~ repeated four times around the coin's edge, with each inscription inverted relative to its neighbor.
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Capped Bust 50¢
Edge lettering was used most extensively on Capped Bust half dollars struck from 1807 to 1836. The edge inscription was FIFTY CENTS OR HALF A DOLLAR.
Capped Bust collectors have the opportunity to collect not only by obverse and reverse die marriages, but also edge lettering varieties, such as blundered, doubled, overlapped or inverted lettering or symbols.
Edge devices differ slightly from one year to the next. Sometimes several edge-lettering devices were put into coinage production within the same calendar year.
William Kneass, the Mint's chief engraver from 1824 until 1840, introduced one of the most important modern minting processes: the use of a close collar die, one result of which was capability to add reeding to the edge of the silver and gold coins as they were being struck. The U.S. Mint abandoned edge lettering in 1836 with the advent of steam-powered presses, and resorted to narrow vertical reeding, which permitted coins to be struck and ejected from the edge collar in rapid succession.
The Capped Bust, Lettered Edge half dollars of 1807 to 1836 were struck in an open collar, while the Capped Bust, Reeded Edge pieces (which followed) were produced in a close collar. The 1836 Capped Bust half dollars can be found with either lettered edges (common, with more than 6.54 million struck) or reeded edges (rare, 1,200 struck).
Introduction of the close collar meant that lettered edges had to be abandoned, as the close collar compressed planchets at striking pressure enough to squash any lettering or ornamentation imparted to blanks before striking, and any device imparted during striking had to allow the coin to eject smoothly from the close die after the strike.
Trying out the edge
The U.S. Mint abandoned edge lettering until Philadelphia Mint Superintendent A. Loudon Snowden in 1867 recommended using raised edge letters on silver and gold coins, but it was found impossible given the technology then available.
Over the next few decades, Mint officials periodically considered using lettered edges, according to research presented by Roger W. Burdette in Coin World, (Sept. 5, 2005, issue), and finally, about 1884, Snowden began a series of experiments aimed at producing a mechanism for impressing raised lettering on the edge of a coin without damaging the lettering thus produced. Testing proved successful (some 1885 Morgan dollar patterns bear edge lettering) but the technique was not introduced to the production process. Burdette surmises that personnel changes led to abandonment of the successful experiment.
Nothing more was done with raised edge lettering in the 19th century. "The mechanism Snowden and the others had worked so hard on was forgotten, and eventually discarded as junk. It was not until Augustus Saint-Gaudens submitted his new double eagle designs in December 1906 that the idea was resurrected," Burdette writes.
Return to the edge
Lettered edges were not implemented again on U.S. coins until 1907, when the Saint-Gaudens gold $20 double eagle was first struck. Struck in a segmented collar divided into three parts, the design of E PLURIBUS UNUM separated by stars was incused on the collar, which created raised elements on the struck coin.
Once the gold planchet was deposited in the striking chamber, the collar would close to contain the metal during the strike. Afterwards, the collar would release and separate to prevent the raised devices on the rim from being sheared off during the ejection of the coin.
The lettered edge continued in production on the Saint-Gaudens double eagle until 1933, when production of all U.S. gold coinage was stopped.
The Indian Head gold $10 eagle, another Saint-Gaudens design and also struck from 1907 to 1933, features raised stars on the edge, produced with a segmented collar of the same sort as used for the double eagle.
After 1933, edge lettering wasn't used for U.S. coins until 1992, when the U.S. Mint struck commemorative coins for the 1992 Olympic Games. The Uncirculated 1992-D Olympic Games dollar coin, which features a baseball pitcher in a wind-up, also features a reeded edge with incuse lettering that was applied after the coin was struck. The inscription ~ XXV OLYMPIAD ~ was alternately inverted four times. After the coins had been struck using a reeded collar die, the edge inscription was added.
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MEXICO'S 1-PESO COIN from 1957 to 1967 reads INDEPENDENCIA Y LIBERTAD, which translates to "Independence and Liberty." Obverse of a 1966 coin is shown with the edge lettering around it, thanks to a special photographic technique.
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Edge of the world
Until the Presidential dollars are released, collectors on a limited budget might want to consider collecting world coins with edge lettering.
They need look no further than the United Kingdom, which has used several different edge mottoes since introducing its £1 coins (known as "round pounds") in 1983.
Because of the numerous design types, various edge mottoes and the many collector options available, dozens of possibilities exist to collect.
Other countries that have issued coins with edge lettering include Mexico (the large, dollar-sized .100 fine silver 1-peso coin from 1957 to 1967 reads INDEPENDENCIA Y LIBERTAD), and Finland (edge of the 5-markka coin from 1972 to 1978 reads REPUBLIKEN FINLAND SUOMEN TASAVALTA).
Because the edge is often overlooked, and the many sealed holders, including most grading service slabs, partially or wholly obscure the edge, it will be somewhat of a challenge to find coins with edge lettering.
As edge lettering makes its comeback on U.S. coins, now might be the time to ponder collecting coins with lettered edges.
