The wear characteristics and wear mechanisms in TiN coating deposited on high speed steel and alloy tool steel by ion plating were investigated. Pin on V-block wear tester was used for a wear test method. The specimen was composed of three kinds of high speed steel and alloy tool steel which had different hardness by changing the heat treating condition. Three kinds of coating thickness were also applied to each specimen. Microscopic observation of worn surfaces was made by SEM. The scratch test of coating surface by the ion plating showed that critical load to break the coating interface was greater than 50N. The critical load increased with both substrate hardness and coating thickness. The wear resistance of TiN coated high speed steel became 10 times greater than that of non-coated ones. SEM observation showed that leading edge of contact was compressive and trailing edge was under maximum tensile stress and then surface cracking broke out perpendicular to sliding direction.