1951-S Repunched Mintmark WRPM-014

Description

Fourteenth repunched mintmark in the Wexler Team's catalog for the 1951-S Lincoln Wheat Cent, WRPM-014 documents another instance of mintmark application irregularity at the San Francisco Mint during the post-war production era. Hand punching of mintmarks into individual working dies was the standard practice at all branch mints through 1989, and the process was inherently subject to positional variation — each die received its mintmark through one or more manual blows of a steel punch bearing the raised letter S, and any movement between impressions created the overlapping images that define a repunched mintmark. The 1951-S Lincoln Cent, struck on bronze planchets with Victor David Brenner's enduring wheat ears reverse, carried a mintage of approximately 136.01 million pieces. Fourteen documented repunched mintmarks speaks to the substantial number of working dies required to produce this volume and the consistent rate at which positioning errors occurred during their preparation. Cross-referenced in the Wexler files as 1951-S 1-cent WRPM-014, this variety occupies the middle range of a twenty-plus entry catalog for the date, offering collectors a well-documented attribution that can be verified against published die marker photographs. Lincoln Wheat Cent RPMs from the San Francisco Mint are among the most accessible die varieties for beginning collectors, combining modest acquisition costs with the satisfaction of identifying a genuine production anomaly through careful mintmark examination.

Attribution History

• Wexler Variety ID: 1951-S 1¢ WRPM-014
• Expert attribution by Wexler Team

External References