1963-D Doubled Die Obverse WDDO-012

Description

Bearing the Wexler Variety ID 1963-D 1c WDDO-012, this Doubled Die Obverse variety of the 1963-D Lincoln Memorial Cent extends the documented census of hubbing anomalies from the Denver Mint's mammoth 1963 production run. The process by which doubled die varieties are created begins at the die-manufacturing stage: a hardened working hub is pressed into a softened die blank multiple times under tremendous hydraulic pressure, and if the relative position of hub and die shifts between impressions — even by a fraction of a degree or a few thousandths of an inch — the resulting die carries a permanent doubled image that it imparts to every coin it strikes. At Denver in 1963, the facility produced 1,774,020,400 cents, a total that consumed working dies at an exceptional rate and guaranteed that a certain number of misaligned hubbing events would occur simply as a matter of probability. WDDO-012 represents one such event. Attributed by the Wexler Team, the variety has no additional cross-references currently known beyond the Wexler catalog, which means it may be among the less widely reported 1963-D varieties — a factor that can make confirmed specimens more challenging to locate in the marketplace. Collectors searching for this variety should examine the standard doubled die checkpoints: the date numerals, IN GOD WE TRUST, LIBERTY, and the profile of Lincoln's portrait, comparing what they observe against the die marker data published for WDDO-012 to ensure they are not attributing a neighboring variety by mistake. The coin was struck in the 95% copper and 5% zinc composition standard for the era.

Attribution History

• Wexler Variety ID: 1963-D 1¢ WDDO-012
• Expert attribution by Wexler Team

External References