1923 Lincoln Wheat Cent Lathe Rings (Obverse)

Description

This 1923 Lincoln Wheat cent displays concentric lathe rings across the obverse field. Lathe rings are the machining marks left on the face of a die blank when it is turned on a lathe during preparation. The marks are normally removed by polishing and obliterated by the hubbing process, but when a die is placed into service with insufficient surface preparation, or when die wear removes the hubbed relief in the fields, the underlying circular turning lines transfer to struck coins as fine concentric circles. Philadelphia struck 74,723,000 cents in 1923.