1963-D Doubled Die Obverse WDDO-005

Description

Occupying the fifth position in the growing catalog of 1963-D Lincoln Memorial Cent Doubled Die Obverse varieties, WDDO-005 adds another documented instance of hubbing misalignment from the Denver Mint's prolific 1963 production campaign. The Denver facility struck 1,774,020,400 cents that year — a volume that required constant die replacement and created a statistical baseline for hubbing anomalies that few other date-and-mintmark combinations can match. Each working die used at Denver was produced through a process of impressing a hardened working hub into an annealed die blank multiple times, and any shift between successive impressions left its signature on every coin that die subsequently struck. For WDDO-005, collectors should examine the date numerals, the letters of IN GOD WE TRUST, and the word LIBERTY under at least 7x magnification, looking for the telltale separation lines, shelving, or flat-shelf doubling that distinguishes a genuine doubled die from machine doubling or die deterioration doubling. The distinction matters because the latter two phenomena are far more common and carry no premium, while a true doubled die reflects a manufacturing event during die production rather than during striking. Attribution to a specific WDDO number requires matching the observed doubling pattern and die markers against published reference data, as multiple 1963-D varieties can appear superficially similar when viewed without sufficient magnification. This variety is part of the numismatic record maintained for the Lincoln Memorial cent series, which ran from 1959 through 2008 and produced more documented doubled die varieties than any other design type in the denomination's history.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Wexler Team

External References