1963 Doubled Die Obverse WDDO-056

Description

Adding to the dense population of documented doubled die obverse varieties for the 1963 Philadelphia Mint Lincoln Memorial Cent, WDDO-056 was identified and attributed by the Wexler Team under the catalog designation Wexler Variety ID 1963 1c WDDO-056. The continued expansion of the 1963 DDO catalog into the high fifties demonstrates the ongoing commitment of variety specialists to a comprehensive documentation of the die population for this date. Doubled die varieties are permanent artifacts of the die manufacturing process: once the hub misalignment creates a secondary image in the die steel, that image persists through the life of the die, and every coin struck from it carries the identical anomaly. The Philadelphia Mint's 1963 business-strike production of 754,110,000 cents required hundreds of individual obverse dies, each passing through the hubbing process independently. At this industrial scale, even a low per-die probability of misalignment translates into a substantial number of doubled dies across the total die population. Collectors hunting for WDDO-056 in 1963 cent rolls should combine careful magnified examination of the doubling zones with die marker comparison against published reference photographs, as the number of varieties in the fifties makes positive identification particularly dependent on die-specific surface features. The coin was struck on a 95% copper and 5% zinc planchet and entered circulation without a mint mark, bearing Victor David Brenner's obverse portrait and Frank Gasparro's Lincoln Memorial reverse.

Attribution History

• Wexler Variety ID: 1963 1¢ WDDO-056
• Expert attribution by Wexler Team

External References