1945-S Doubled Die Obverse DDO-001

Description

Designated as the benchmark obverse doubled die for the 1945-S Lincoln wheat cent, DDO-001 presents medium extra thickness on LIBERTY, the date, and WE TRUST — a distributed doubling pattern affecting three prominent inscription areas on Victor David Brenner's obverse portrait. VarietyVista assigned identifiers UVC-1704 and DMR-030, with an unusually detailed four-stage die life progression: Stage A at early die state (unconfirmed), Stage B at mid die state (unconfirmed), Stage C where both obverse and reverse have reached late die state, and Stage D where both surfaces have progressed to very late die state (VLDS). The four-stage documentation is exceptional — most varieties track only three stages — and the confirmed LDS at Stage C and VLDS at Stage D indicate this die served for an extended period, providing collectors with a broad spectrum of die states to collect and compare. The comments note that the mintmark is classified as MMS-006 with a ball serif characteristic, indicating the S mintmark exhibits a specific style with rounded serif terminals that provides an additional diagnostic point for attribution. San Francisco struck approximately 181.77 million wheat cents in 1945, a wartime production volume where copper composition had returned to normal after the 1943 steel cent experiment. The high DMR number (030) indicates this die marriage sits deep in VarietyVista's sequential registry for the date, reflecting extensive documentation of 1945-S die pairings. Medium extra thickness on LIBERTY, the date, and WE TRUST indicates the doubling manifests as enhanced letter and numeral width rather than dramatically separated secondary images. Collectors should examine these three diagnostic areas under 10-15x magnification and note the ball serif S mintmark as a confirming secondary characteristic.

Die Markers

• UVC-1704
• DMR-030
• Stage A:
• EDS (unconfirmed)
• Stage B:
• MDS (unconfirmed)
• Stage C:
• Obverse and Reverse are LDS
• Stage D:
• Obverse and Reverse are VLDS

Attribution History

• Discovered by John A. Wexler
• Expert attribution by VarietyVista

External References