1968-D Variety WWHO-001

Description

One of the most significant varieties in the entire 1968 Lincoln cent catalog, WWHO-001 is a Doubled Working Hub Obverse — a fundamentally different phenomenon from the more common doubled die obverse (DDO). While a doubled die results from misalignment between successive hub impressions on a single working die, a doubled working hub occurs one step earlier in the manufacturing chain: the doubling is introduced when the working hub itself receives misaligned impressions from the master die. Because the working hub is the tool used to create all working dies for a given denomination and year, doubling on the hub is transferred to every single working die produced from it, and from those dies to every coin struck by those dies. This multiplicative effect means that WWHO-001 is not a single-die variety but a hub-level variety — potentially present on millions of coins struck from dozens or even hundreds of different working dies across multiple mint facilities. The Wexler Team's documentation explicitly notes that "numerous working dies for all three Mints were created with this doubled working hub including S-Mint proof dies," confirming that the doubling affected Philadelphia business strikes, Denver business strikes (including this 1968-D issue), and San Francisco proof coins alike. This cross-mint, cross-strike-type distribution is the defining characteristic that distinguishes working hub doubling from working die doubling: a DDO is confined to the output of one die, while a WWHO is present on every coin produced from every die made from the affected hub. For collectors, this distinction has practical implications. WWHO-001 specimens are more readily available than single-die DDO varieties because the doubling was replicated across the entire die population, but many collectors overlook them precisely because the doubling appears on "too many" coins to seem noteworthy. In the hierarchy of doubled die classification, however, working hub doubling represents a more fundamental manufacturing anomaly than working die doubling, occurring at a higher level of the die-making chain where errors have far broader consequences. Cataloged under Wexler Variety ID: 1968-P,D,S 1¢ WWHO-001. No other cross-references are known, and the Wexler Team is the attributing authority. The 1968 date marks the return of mint marks to U.S. coinage after the three-year Coinage Act of 1965 hiatus. Struck on a 3.11-gram, 19mm planchet of 95% copper and 5% zinc at the Denver Mint.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Various individuals. Cross References: None known Comments: Numerous working dies for all three Mints were created with this doubled working hub including S-Mint proof dies.
• None known Comments: Numerous working dies for all three Mints were created with this doubled working hub including S-Mint proof dies.; Wexler Variety ID: 1968-P,D,S 1¢ WWHO-001
• Expert attribution by Wexler Team

External References