CU-1C-1952D-01 Cud

Description

Opening the 1952-D cud roster, CU-1C-1952D-01 documents the first cataloged rim die break on Lincoln Wheat Cents struck at Denver that year. The early 1950s saw Denver operating as the higher-volume branch mint, consistently outproducing San Francisco on cent coinage and consuming working dies at a pace that inevitably generated rim failures. A cud is the terminal expression of die fatigue at the rim: the fracture does not merely crack the surface but removes a physical piece of the die, creating a void that fills with struck metal and leaves a raised, design-free plateau on the finished coin. This particular variety inaugurates a group of four documented 1952-D cuds, continuing a pattern visible across the early-1950s Denver cent output where multiple rim failures cluster around single dates. For attribution, the position of the cud along the coin's circumference is the primary diagnostic — each of the four 1952-D varieties occupies a distinct arc, affecting different portions of Brenner's obverse design or the reverse wheat-stalk frame. The Cuds on Coins project cataloged this as the baseline entry, against which subsequent 1952-D discoveries are numbered and positioned.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Charity & Chris Welch
• CU-1C-1952D-01
• Expert attribution by Cuds on Coins

External References