Jeff,
I think the reason the
border doesn't appear on the
brockage is because it's off
flan! To prove this, you need to take a few measurements. First note that the obv/rev photos are to
scale - they are both the same width. Now try measuring from N-to-N across the coin (i.e from N of CON to N of
NOB), measuring from inside-to-inside and outside-to-outside on both sides of the coin. What you'll notice is that not only is the N-N outside-outside measurement larger on the
brockage side, but also the N-N inside-to-inside measurement is larger which means that the
whole design is stretched on the
brockage side, not just independent device-by-device (
bust,
legend, etc) stretching. If you measure this global expansion factor of the design on the
brockage vs non-brockage
side, then use that to calculate where the bottom beaded edge would be, it is indeed off-flan.
I think maybe what's happening here is that the
brockage "punch" (coin) design itself is already stretched relative to the design on the die that struck the other
side, and maybe the outward vs inward force of a punch vs die is having little effect (except maybe some localized device-by-device stretching - need to check if local expansion factor is same as global expansion factor). It seems that the
flan flattening/stretching that occurs due to striking is not just extruding metal from the edges of the dies, but is rather also stretching the whole of the struck coin (maybe some very short lived inertia/metal-flow after the strike?), and the
brockage side thus appears stretched and missing edge detail because it was struck with this stretched "punch" rather than the original sized die that struck the other
side (but of course in a case where the
flan had been larger relative to the die, the
border would
still appear).
As for level of detail on both sides, it looks about the same to me subject the perceptual limitations of the different shadows due to the convex vs concave designs.
Ben