VLDS.........

coop · Expert Member

I think that most of us know what the different die states mean. We see a lot of EDS (Early Die State) MDS (Mid Die State) and LDS (Late Die States) listed here on the site. But I received a coin that was a VLDS. (Very Late Die State) Why are there distinctions? When a die is new it is a EDS die. But after a few hundreds of strikes the die begins to wear and you see light lines towards the rims of the coins. This is die flow. As the coins are pressed into the die, the die starts losing details. The pattern of wear is noticed on the fields and on the edges of the numbers/letters on the coin. As the next few hundreds to thousands of coins is made the die then moves to the MDS die state. And after a few thousand more the LDS die state is achieved. But the VLDS die state is not the most desired die state as the details start to flow together. Leaving a very rough field and the details of the devices on the coin start to flow into each other. These coins show extreme wear so that they are commonly referred to in the case of the 1955/5, the “poor mans doubled die.” You see these for sale on Ebay and coin shops. But these are not doubled dies, just worn dies. Maybe they are called “poor man’s” doubled dies as if you paid a lot for one of them, you would be the poor man who got something that isn’t really collectable. I found in a roll of 1955 plain Cents about 17 out of 50 that were that way. I checked the markers on them and most were different, so they didn’t come from the same die. But I thought I would show some images of the coin I received to let you see what to watch for as they can be deceiving to the untrained eye. Some have thought they were doubled dies/RPMs or anything else they can come up with a name for, to sell them. So buyer beware.

coppercoins · Site Admin

I may add by saying that in LDS most of the outer edges of the outer devices will still have some soft definition to them. In VLDS there will be little or no definition to these areas. Additionally, in VLDS much of the central area of the design will likely be mired by speckles caused by die wear.