1949 (D) Lincoln Wheat Cent - Repunched Mintmark WRPM-028

Description

Submitted by John Bordner and cataloged by the Wexler Team as 1949-D 1¢ WRPM-028, this Lincoln Wheat Cent displays a D/D Tilted (Rotated) repunched mintmark — a variety created when the small hand-punched D mintmark was impressed into the working die at a slightly rotated angle from its initial position, leaving traces of the first punch visible beneath or beside the final placement. The obverse die markers include a long die gouge under and to the right of the VDB designer initials, a die scratch in the eye pocket of Lincoln's portrait, and a die chip on the bridge of Lincoln's nose. On the reverse, a small die chip sits above the dot between E and P of E PLURIBUS, along with a die chip to the right and about centered from the E of ONE. No other cross-references are currently known for this variety. Repunched mintmarks are a distinctly pre-1990 phenomenon: before the Mint began incorporating mintmarks directly into the master hub in 1990, each individual working die received its mintmark via a hand-operated punch, introducing the possibility of misplacement, tilting, or multiple impressions with every die produced. The 1949-D Wheat Cent was struck at the Denver Mint in a production run of approximately 153.1 million pieces, and the combination of high volume with manual mintmark application created numerous RPM varieties across the date. WRPM-028 occupies a position well into the catalog sequence, confirming that the 1949-D is among the more prolific RPM dates in the Wheat Cent series.

Cross References

• None known; Wexler Variety ID: 1949-D 1¢ WRPM-028

External References