1941 Doubled Die Obverse WDDO-002

Description

Attributed by the Wexler Team under Wexler Variety ID 1941 1c WDDO-002, this doubled die obverse for the 1941 Philadelphia Lincoln wheat cent documents a hub misalignment that transferred a secondary obverse impression onto a working die during the die-making process. The cross-reference notation "s:" without additional catalog numbers suggests that no CONECA or other major attribution service listing had been assigned at the time of cataloging, making the Wexler files the primary reference for this variety. Victor David Brenner's Lincoln obverse — the same portrait that had graced the cent since 1909 — features Lincoln's right-facing bust with IN GOD WE TRUST above, LIBERTY to the left, and the date to the right, all set within a relatively flat field that can make subtle doubling challenging to detect without magnification. The 1941 Philadelphia cent mintage of 887,039,100 was one of the largest in the series to that point, as pre-war industrial expansion drove demand for circulating coinage. The massive output required extensive die utilization, and each working die originated from the hubbing press where a hardened hub was forced into an annealed die blank under tremendous hydraulic pressure. When this process required multiple impressions to fully sink the design — as was standard practice — any shift between impressions created the doubled die effect. WDDO-002 as the second-cataloged DDO for the 1941 cent occupies a position behind the presumably more significant WDDO-001, but each numbered listing represents a unique die with its own characteristics, die markers, and population of surviving struck examples waiting to be identified in collections and dealer inventories.

Attribution History

• s:; Wexler Variety ID: 1941 1¢ WDDO-002
• Expert attribution by Wexler Team

External References