1950 (D) Lincoln Wheat Cent - Repunched Mintmark WRPM-030

Description

Thirty documented repunched mintmarks for the 1950-D Lincoln Wheat Cent demonstrate the frequency with which Denver`s hand-punched D landed off-position during die preparation. Cataloged by the Wexler Team as 1950-D 1-cent WRPM-030, this variety records the thirtieth such instance for the date, adding to one of the denser RPM catalogs among late-era Wheat Cents. Repunched mintmarks were an unavoidable byproduct of the Mint`s pre-1990 practice of adding mintmarks to individual working dies by hand — each die shipped from Philadelphia arrived blank in the mintmark area, and a Denver worker struck the D punch into the die face with a hammer. Any misalignment left a permanent ghost of the first position. The 1950-D cent was struck near the end of the Wheat Cent era, with only nine more years of production before the Memorial reverse debuted in 1959. Denver`s substantial output consumed enough working dies to generate thirty or more detectable RPM events, each representing an independent die where the mintmark application went slightly awry. Collectors identify WRPM-030 by examining the D under magnification for traces of the initial misaligned punch.

Cross References

• None known Comments: The photo of the RPM was taken by Brian Ribar.; Wexler Variety ID: 1950-D 1¢ WRPM-030

External References