1892 Indian Head Cent Die Clash (Forehead/C)

Description

Displaying a distinctive double die clash on the reverse, this 1892 Indian Head Cent shows Liberty’s forehead from the obverse die impressed twice below and through the letter C in CENT — evidence of at least two separate clash events where the obverse and reverse dies struck each other without a planchet between them, with the second clash not perfectly aligning with the first. The double clashing creates a distinctive doubled forehead impression beneath the C, with two overlapping incuse portraits at slightly different positions, distinguishing this specimen from the single-clash variety also documented for the 1892 date. Double die clashes — where two independent clash events occur on the same die pair — are less common than single clashes because they require two separate planchet-feed failures, and the resulting overlapping transferred images create a more complex visual pattern than a single transferred impression. The 1892 Indian Head Cent was designed by James Barton Longacre, featuring Liberty wearing a Native American feathered headdress on the obverse and an oak wreath with shield on the reverse. Struck at the Philadelphia Mint in bronze composition (95% copper, 5% tin and zinc) weighing 3.11 grams with a diameter of 19.05 mm, the 1892 had a mintage of approximately 37.6 million pieces. The C in CENT sits in the lower reverse area directly opposite the forehead region on the obverse, which is why the forehead consistently appears in this location on clashed Indian Head Cent reverses — the die alignment ensures specific obverse-reverse design element correspondences that produce predictable clash mark locations.