1964-D Doubled Die Reverse WDDR-024

Description

Bearing the Wexler Team attribution as WDDR-024 (Wexler Variety ID: 1964-D 1¢ WDDR-024), this doubled die reverse variety emerged from the Denver Mint's unprecedented 1964 cent manufacturing campaign. The facility's output of 3,799,071,500 Lincoln cents that year represented an industrial response to the coin shortage crisis, with production sustained at maximum capacity throughout the calendar year. The reverse working dies consumed during this extended run were each individually manufactured through multi-impression hubbing, a process in which the reverse working hub — carrying Frank Gasparro's Lincoln Memorial design — was pressed into a heated die blank under tremendous hydraulic force multiple times. The inherent potential for slight misalignment between successive hub impressions meant that a fraction of these dies inevitably received the doubled design image that defines a doubled die variety. WDDR-024 documents one such occurrence, capturing the specific doubling pattern and die characteristics that distinguish it from the dozens of other DDR varieties cataloged for this prolific date. The enormous surviving population of 1964-D cents, preserved in rolls, bags, and accumulations that have never received systematic variety examination, suggests that additional specimens of this variety likely await discovery. This was the final year the "D" mint mark appeared on Lincoln cents before the three-year removal beginning in 1965. Struck on a 95% copper and 5% tin-zinc planchet at 3.11 grams and 19mm diameter.

Attribution History

• Wexler Variety ID: 1964-D 1¢ WDDR-024
• Expert attribution by Wexler Team

External References