CU-50c-1902O-01 Cud

Description

From the New Orleans Mint during its final decade of operation, this first cataloged cud for the 1902-O Barber Half Dollar documents die rim failure on Charles Barber's Liberty Head design. The Barber Half Dollar series ran from 1892 through 1915, featuring Liberty wearing a laurel wreath and Phrygian cap on the obverse with a heraldic eagle on the reverse. New Orleans struck Barber Half Dollars from the series inception through 1909, when the facility permanently closed after seven decades of service. A cud forms when a section of the die rim fractures and separates entirely, leaving a cavity that fills with metal during striking to produce a raised featureless mass at the coin's edge. The O mintmark, hand-punched onto each working die, identifies this as a product of the New Orleans facility that served Southern commerce since 1838. Barber Half Dollar cuds are scarcer than their Lincoln Cent counterparts because the silver denomination's lower mintages meant fewer die pairs and fewer opportunities for rim fractures. Cataloged by Cuds on Coins, this entry establishes the baseline die failure record for the 1902-O Barber Half in a catalog dominated by copper denominations.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Heritage Auction
• Expert attribution by Cuds on Coins

External References