1964-D Doubled Die Obverse WDDO-001

Description

Opening the doubled die obverse catalog for the 1964-D Lincoln Memorial Cent, WDDO-001 is a variety struck at the Denver Mint during a year of unprecedented production volume. The Denver facility produced 3,799,071,500 Lincoln cents in 1964 — the highest mintage for any Lincoln cent to that date — driven by a nationwide coin shortage that had been building since the early 1960s as rising silver prices and expanding vending machine usage drained coins from circulation. This extraordinary output consumed an immense number of working dies, each manufactured through the multi-impression hubbing process in which the obverse working hub was pressed into a softened die blank multiple times under hydraulic force to achieve full design depth. Any fractional displacement of the hub between these impressions produced a permanent doubled image in the die steel, creating the variety that collectors now catalog as a doubled die obverse. The sheer volume of dies consumed by the Denver Mint in 1964 made it statistically inevitable that numerous hubbing anomalies would occur across the die population, and WDDO-001 documents the first cataloged example. As the initial entry in the series, it anchors the 1964-D DDO census. The 1964-D cent is also historically significant as the last Denver-minted Lincoln cent to carry a mint mark before Congress directed the removal of mint marks from all coins beginning in 1965, a measure intended to discourage the hoarding that officials believed was exacerbating the coin shortage. Struck on a 95% copper and 5% tin-zinc planchet weighing 3.11 grams at 19mm, the coin bears the Brenner portrait and Gasparro Memorial reverse.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Wexler Team

External References