1918 (S) Lincoln Wheat Cent - CU-1C-1918S-03 Cud

Description

Produced during the final year of World War I, this 1918 (S) Lincoln Wheat Cent carries the third documented cud for its date and mint, cataloged as CU-1C-1918S-03. The San Francisco Mint struck cents throughout the war years under conditions that tested both equipment and workforce, and die failures like cuds provide physical evidence of the production environment. The mechanism behind every cud is fundamentally the same — a segment of the die rim fractures under repeated striking pressure and breaks away, leaving a void that fills with metal on subsequent strikes — but each individual cud is unique in shape, size, and position because no two die fractures follow identical paths through the steel. This uniqueness gives cuds a visual drama that sets them apart from subtler varieties like repunched mintmarks or doubled dies. In this case, the cud is just north of IN in the motto and running beyond IN counter clockwise. By 1918, Victor David Brenner's Lincoln Cent design was entering its tenth year of production, and the Mint had established reliable die-manufacturing processes — yet wartime exigencies meant that even well-made dies were sometimes pressed into service beyond prudent limits, contributing to rim failures documented across multiple San Francisco issues of the era.

Cross References

• CU-1C-1918S-03

External References