CU-5c-1940S-02 Cud

Description

San Francisco's early Jefferson nickel production generated this rim cud, the second documented for the 1940-S issue and cross-referenced as JNC-40S-1B in the Jefferson Nickel Cuds registry. The "1B" suffix in the JNC system suggests this cud shares a relationship with JNC-40S-1A (the cross-reference for CU-5c-1940S-04), possibly indicating that both cuds originated from the same die at different stages of its rim fracture progression, or from fractures in closely related positions. San Francisco struck 39.7 million nickels in 1940, a modest quantity that reflected the facility's smaller capacity compared to Philadelphia and Denver. The Jefferson nickel was only in its third year of production in 1940, and San Francisco's lower output volumes meant fewer dies in rotation, making each documented die failure proportionally more significant in terms of the percentage of production affected. Felix Schlag's design had won a public competition in 1938, and by 1940 the Mint had gained only limited experience with the die wear characteristics specific to this design -- the bold left-facing portrait and the detailed Monticello facade both placed demands on die steel that differed from the preceding Buffalo nickel. The S mintmark on prewar nickels was hand-punched into each working die, introducing slight position variations that are themselves collected as repunched mintmark (RPM) varieties. However, CU-5c-1940S-02 is documented purely as a rim cud, with the mintmark characteristics not bearing on the cud attribution. For collectors of early Jefferson nickel errors, the 1940-S cuds represent some of the earliest documented rim failures in the series.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Fred Weinberg
• Cross reference number: JNC-40S-1B
• Expert attribution by Cuds on Coins

External References