1970-S Doubled Die Obverse WDDO-050

Description

Reaching the fiftieth position in the Wexler doubled die obverse catalog for the 1970-S Lincoln Memorial cent, WDDO-050 marks a milestone that encapsulates the extraordinary depth of doubled die research for this date. Fifty distinct doubled die obverse dies from a single date and mint is a catalog density matched by very few dates in the entire U.S. coinage series, reflecting both prolific die production at San Francisco in 1970 and the sustained research effort variety specialists have invested over decades. This Small Date regular strike entry represents one more physically distinct working die — prepared from the Small Date hub whose secondary hubbing landed with enough misalignment to produce detectable, catalogable doubling. No confirmed cross-references are known. The round-number milestone invites consideration of how much undiscovered territory may remain: if fifty varieties have been documented through systematic examination by dedicated researchers, the question of whether additional undocumented dies exist depends on how thoroughly the surviving coin population has been searched and how many working dies remain unexamined in hoards, rolls, and accumulations not yet subjected to variety-focused scrutiny. For collectors, the very existence of fifty documented varieties means that any bag or roll of 1970-S Small Date cents carries meaningful discovery potential.

Attribution History

• Discovered by John Shields Cross References: None known
• None known; Wexler Variety ID: 1970-S 1¢ WDDO-050
• Expert attribution by Wexler Team

External References