Brockages: Why One Side Is Sunk In and Backwards

This Civil War token reads STAND BY THE FLAG. Turn it over and the same design is there again, but pressed into the metal and backwards. It's a brockage, and it's one of the easiest errors to understand once you've seen a clear one.

An 1863 Stand By The Flag token (Fuld 213): the normal side, and the full brockage on the back, sunk in and in mirror image.

A Coin Struck by a Coin

Error-Ref defines a brockage as "an incuse, mirror-image version of the design," produced "when a coin is struck into a planchet or another coin." Here's how it happens:

1. A coin (or token) is struck, but instead of dropping out of the press it stays stuck to one of the dies. 2. The next blank goes in and is struck against that stuck coin instead of against the die. 3. The side facing the working die comes out normal. The side facing the stuck coin gets that coin's design pressed into it, sunk in and reversed.

The Mirror Trick

Because the design was pressed in from the face of another coin, everything on the brockage side is reversed. Lettering reads backwards. Hold the brockage side up to a mirror and the words read correctly.

A Good For 1 Cent token (Fuld 393a): the normal side, and the brockage side with GOOD FOR and the 1 reversed.

From Brockage to Capped Die

The first impression is called a first-strike brockage, and it's usually the sharpest. If the stuck coin stays on the die, it keeps striking new blanks, giving what Error-Ref calls early-, mid- and late-stage brockages. With each blow it spreads and wraps around the die until it becomes a die cap, and the coins it strikes are capped die strikes. The sharpest, most complete brockages, which Error-Ref calls mirror brockages, happen when both the stuck coin and the new blank are held inside the collar.

Brockages on Tokens

Brockages happen on regular U.S. coins too, but Civil War token collectors treat them as part of the series. The standard Fuld catalogs give token brockages their own numbers, so a full brockage of a patriotic token is listed as its own variety. That doesn't make them common.

An 1864 Abraham Lincoln token (Fuld 131) with a partial brockage of the bust on the back.

How to Spot One

One side normal, the other the same design sunk in, not raised.
The brockage side is reversed: lettering reads backwards.
Not to be confused with a counterbrockage, which Error-Ref describes as what happens "when an error coin with a brockage is struck into a planchet."

See the Brockage and Capped Die pages, and the brockages in the catalog, such as the Stand By The Flag, Good For 1 Cent and Lincoln tokens, and an 1886 Morgan dollar capped die brockage.

Sources: Error-Ref, "Brockage" and "Counterbrockage" definitions; Wikipedia, "Brockage"; coinhelp.net, "Reading the Civil War Token Tables"; Collectors Universe forums.