The March 14 Collectors’ Clearinghouse column featured an unusual 1987 Indian 5-paise coin with an irregular outgrowth extending from the right side of the Ashoka Lion (see photo). Its appearance seemed incompatible with any known die defect, so I attributed it to a hubbed-in encrustation. I speculated that some hardened grime clinging to the field portion of the working hub left an impression in the working die into which it was squeezed.

Reasonable scenario?

This scenario seemed reasonable when this die was the only one known to be affected in this manner. Now two more 1987 5-paise coins have turned up with the same sort of excrescence in the same general area. One is an example I acquired, designated here as “die 2.” Another example acquired by Jason Cuvelier is designated here as “die 3” (see photos). It’s just too farfetched to think that three different dirty hubs could have been used when fabricating these three working dies.

Connect with Coin World:  

• Sign up for our free eNewsletter
• Like us on Facebook  
• Follow us on Twitter

The defects display the same characteristics that led me to initially reject the idea that they could represent interior die breaks, die subsidence errors, die damage, or “blebs” (die erosion pits). They are adorned with the same irregular tubercles, lack any clear signs of breakage (such as a grainy texture or a sharp, jagged step-down), show relief that approaches or matches the normal design, express the same level and pattern of die wear as the surrounding field and design, and merge smoothly with the adjacent lion. None of the three examples shows any weakness or “pucker” opposite the excrescence.

Large, deep recesses (like interior die breaks) will often generate a featureless depression on the opposite face. The absence of such a pucker would indicate that the texture of each excrescence is a faithful representation of the corresponding recess in the obverse die.

Recurring die defect

Nevertheless, the presence of three similar coins would strongly indicate that we’re looking at a recurring die defect. For reasons that are unclear, the die steel was weak in the area just to the right of the Ashoka Lion. I toyed with the idea that this could be a very strange form of die collapse — a die subsidence error. Perhaps the die steel was collapsing into a spongy or low-density interior. While I can’t entirely rule out this scenario, it seems to me that we’re probably looking at interior die breaks.

Supporting this conjecture is the presence of smaller more familiar-looking lumps along the right side and beneath the base of the statue. These do look like conventional die chips. Photos of two additional examples (not shown) — one dated 1987 and one dated 1989 — also show die chips in and around the statue base. Another observation supporting the die break theory is that die chips sometimes recur in the same general area. For example, in Roosevelt dimes one frequently finds die chips located beneath the bust of Roosevelt, between the date and Mint mark.

Explaining the features

How then, can we explain the features that originally led me to dismiss the die break diagnosis?

The unexpected characteristics described above can perhaps be reconciled if we assume that the die breaks developed immediately after hubbing or shortly after installation (most die breaks form later in a press run). This rapid formation could have been a single event or a rapidly-forming accretionary die break (a die break that grows at its margins). Die wear subsequent to the breaks could have smoothed out any signs of obvious fracture and facilitated a smooth transition between die break and design. All three dies show significant die wear, signifying a prolonged interval during which sharp transitions, boundaries, and surfaces could have been smoothed.

This episode demonstrates the importance of sample size. It’s always beneficial to have more than one example of a particular error, especially when that error is unfamiliar.