1915-D Repunched Mintmark WRPM-002

Description

Wexler designation 1915-D 1¢ WRPM-002 identifies this as the second documented repunched mintmark for the 1915 Denver Mint Lincoln Wheat Cent, with no other known cross-references in competing attribution systems. The 1915-D cent was produced during the sixth full year of Lincoln Cent coinage, a period when Denver Mint operations were still relatively young — the Denver facility had only begun striking coins in 1906, making it barely a decade old when this die was prepared. Repunched mintmarks from this early era of Denver production are significant because they document the handcraft processes used to prepare branch mint dies. At the Philadelphia Mint, where all dies were manufactured, a mint employee would use a small hand punch bearing the letter D to impress the Denver mintmark into each working die destined for the Colorado facility. If the first punch was off-center, tilted, or too shallow, a second impression was applied in the correct position, leaving overlapping or displaced letter traces that collectors identify as repunched mintmarks. The Wexler Team, led by John Wexler in collaboration with other attributors, maintains a comprehensive registry of RPM varieties organized by date, denomination, and mint — and two documented RPMs for the 1915-D cent indicates that mintmark punching issues were not isolated to a single die but occurred across at least two separate die preparations. Early Lincoln Cent RPMs command particular attention from variety collectors because the hand-punched mintmark era for cents ended in the 1980s when the Mint transitioned to incorporating mintmarks directly into the master die.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Lloyd Hanson Cross References: None known
• None known; Wexler Variety ID: 1915-D 1¢ WRPM-002
• Expert attribution by Wexler Team

External References