1927 Doubled Die Obverse WDDO-013

Description

At catalog number 013, WDDO-013 for the 1927 Lincoln wheat cent indicates a healthy census of DDO varieties for this pre-Depression date, with at least thirteen distinct doubled die obverses identified. Attributed by the Wexler Team under Wexler Variety ID 1927 1c WDDO-013, the cross-reference notation "s:" without additional catalog numbers suggests no CONECA or supplementary attribution existed at the time of cataloging. Victor David Brenner's Lincoln obverse had been in continuous production since 1909, and by 1927 the design's portrait of Abraham Lincoln — composed of hair texture, beard detail, cheekbone contours, and the surrounding inscriptions — had become the most familiar coin design in American commerce. The 1927 Philadelphia cent had a mintage of 144,440,000, a robust output that required numerous die pairs and created the statistical opportunity for hub misalignment varieties to appear across the production run. Hub doubling on Lincoln cent obverses typically presents most visibly on the motto IN GOD WE TRUST, the date digits, and the word LIBERTY, where the inscription letters are set against relatively open field areas that provide contrast for doubled impressions. The -013 designation, while indicating a lower-profile variety than the headline -001 through -003 listings, represents a genuine doubled die that documents a specific hub-to-die transfer anomaly at the Philadelphia Mint during 1927 production. Collectors specializing in early Lincoln wheat cent varieties will find that the pre-1930 DDO census, while growing, remains smaller than the post-1940 listings, reflecting both fewer surviving examples and historically lower collector awareness during the series' first two decades.

Attribution History

• s:; Wexler Variety ID: 1927 1¢ WDDO-013
• Expert attribution by Wexler Team

External References