1950 Lincoln Wheat Cent - SKH-1c-1950-20 Spiked Head

Description

Carrying the remarkable sequence number of twenty, this spiked head for the 1950 Philadelphia Mint Lincoln Wheat Cent testifies to the extraordinary depth of spiked head documentation for a date from the early Cold War era. Twenty spiked heads from a single date and mint indicates that at least twenty individual obverse dies cracked into Lincoln's bust during 1950-P cent production — a count that rivals or exceeds many modern Shield Cent dates. The notation "Cohen not listed" in the cross-reference field indicates that this particular spiked head has not been assigned a Cohen Index number, leaving it without a parallel attribution in that independent classification system. Each spike is a die crack running from the rim into Lincoln's bust, and the crack's characteristics — position, length, angle — distinguish each variety in the numbered sequence. The 1950 Philadelphia Mint cent production was robust, with millions of coins struck across numerous die pairs during a post-war economy that was transitioning into the consumer-driven growth of the 1950s. Cataloged by Cuds on Coins on December 8, 2019, this twentieth entry was documented nearly seven decades after the coin's production, demonstrating that new die variety discoveries continue to emerge from vintage Wheat Cent populations. The depth of the 1950-P spiked head catalog gives a measure of how often obverse dies cracked into the bust in mid-century cent production.

Cross References

• Cross reference number: Cohen not listed. 12/08/2019.

External References