NNP

Weakly Struck.  A piece produced in a press but not fully struck up, where features, devices or lettering appear indistinct. There are three causes of this:  (1) too light a pressure as during press setup, (2) too thin a planchet or (3) too hard a planchett.. During setup particularly for a new coin design, the pressman will purposely start with too light a pressure and build up until the proper pressure will fully strike up a complete design. Light impressions on full weight planchets are a form of die trials.

A thin planchet in a coining press would cause a weakly struck piece because there is not enough metal to fill every die cavity and force metal against the collar. Thus too thin a planchet will appear weakly struck. Finally in multiple striking of art medals, a piece with the first several blows will appear weakly struck, but only requires additional blows to complete the design.

For too hard a planchet:. this was a common occurrence at the New Orleans Mint where the annealing equipment was unable to properly soften planchets if the production schedule was maintained. This was confirmed in 1900 by a detailed test and examination at New Orleans.

excerpted with permission from

An Encyclopedia of Coin and Medal Technology

For Artists, Makers, Collectors and Curators

COMPILED AND WRITTEN BY D. WAYNE JOHNSON

Roger W. Burdette, Editor