CU-1C-1846-1 Cud

Description

Cataloged by the Cuds on Coins research team as CU-1C-1846-1, this major die break appears on the 1846 Braided Hair cent struck from the Small Date obverse die. When a section of hardened steel fractures and separates from the die face at the rim, the resulting void fills with metal during striking, producing the raised featureless mass that collectors call a cud. On Christian Gobrecht's Braided Hair design — which depicts Liberty wearing a coronet inscribed LIBERTY with her hair in elaborate braids — the rim area carries stars and the date in close proximity, making positional identification of the break straightforward. The 1846 cent saw a mintage of approximately 4.1 million pieces across multiple obverse and reverse die pairs, and three separate cud varieties are documented for this date alone (CU-1C-1846-1 through CU-1C-1846-3), indicating that the large-cent dies of this period were driven hard enough to generate terminal failures at the rim with some regularity. Pre-Civil War large cent cuds remain popular with error collectors because they combine 19th-century copper patina, significant visual impact, and the dramatic evidence of die failure that makes error collecting compelling.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Friscomint1793 on eBay
• CU-1C-1846-1; none.
• Expert attribution by Cuds on Coins

External References