SKH-1c-1971D-14 Spiked Head

Description

Sharing the same December 26, 2017 documentation date as SKH-13, SKH-1c-1971D-14 on the 1971-D Lincoln Memorial cent records the fourteenth distinct die crack at Lincoln's head — two separate spiked head discoveries cataloged on the same day. Attributed by Cuds on Coins, simultaneous entries like SKH-13 and SKH-14 illustrate how productive a concentrated search session can be when applied to a date with the 1971-D's combination of massive mintage, high die consumption, and systematic vulnerability to head-area die cracking. The two varieties, though cataloged together, originate from physically different working dies with their own unique crack geometries. The die steel used for Lincoln cent obverse dies in 1971 was subject to the same hardening and tempering specifications applied across the Mint system, meaning the crack susceptibility was not a defect of a particular batch of steel but rather an inherent consequence of the design's geometry interacting with production-level striking forces. SKH-14's crack path, angle, and extent provide the diagnostic criteria that separate it from SKH-13 and the surrounding catalog entries — subtle but measurable differences that can be resolved through magnified comparison against published reference images.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Bob Byrd
• Cross reference: none. 12/26/2017.
• Expert attribution by Cuds on Coins

External References