The other kind of Trails

[eagames]

Before people realized that some dies had die trails and BJ Neff started to document them I would see them and think it was die erosion. Sometimes a die will get trails as the the die wears and as coins are struck metal flow from the center to the rim caused lines in the die that look like trails. This is probably one reason people ignored them for a long time.

Just thought I'd post a coin that shows it, notice how the lines go from the letters to the rim. This coin also looked like a doubled die since it has thick letter tops on the motto but that is probably also just from a worn out die. Also notice the bulged area in the motto which is a sign of a worn out die that shows up on zinc cents but not normaly on copper ones which shows that the die lines probably also are a sign of the die being very worn out: (not on the die when it was new)



Then here's a coin with the sort of die trails that BJ Neff documents. This was the strongest one I found. It is not from a worn die and the trails direction does not always follow the metal flow direction and probably was on the die when it was new: (coin was listed as 1999-P 1DTR-004 in BJs old listing numbers)

[wavysteps2003]

Thanks Ed for pointing that out. Flow lines from die deterioration can be confused with trail lines.
One thing to remember is that trail lines almost always travel in the same direction while die deterioration lines are radial.

As to the trail die shown; it is listed as 1994P-1DER-040T.

BJ Neff