SKH-1c-1972D-04 Spiked Head

Description

Spring of 2017 produced the fourth spiked head attribution for the 1972-D Lincoln Memorial cent: SKH-1c-1972D-04, documented by the Cuds on Coins team on April 21, 2017, with no external cross-references. By this point in the cataloging process, the pattern was clear — the 1972-D date was yielding an uncommonly rich harvest of spiked head varieties, each representing a different die that developed a crack projecting from Lincoln's portrait during production at the Denver Mint. The April documentation date, following three January attributions, suggests these varieties were being discovered and submitted by collectors at a steady pace as awareness of the spiked head category grew within the error coin community. Spiked heads form through a specific mechanical process: as the die cycles through millions of strikes, microcracks nucleate at the stress concentration where the deep portrait recess meets the die face surface. These microcracks coalesce and propagate along paths of least resistance through the die steel's grain structure, eventually breaking through to the working surface and creating the channel that produces the spike on struck coins. The direction of crack propagation — and therefore the resulting spike's orientation on the coin — depends on local stress fields, grain boundary orientations, and any pre-existing flaws in the die steel, ensuring that each spiked head variety exhibits a genuinely unique geometry. SKH-1c-1972D-04's position as the fourth entry confirms that at least four different obverse dies developed head-region cracks during the 1972-D production run, a frequency consistent with the date's enormous mintage requirements.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Keith Christenson
• Cross reference: none. 04/21/2017.
• Expert attribution by Cuds on Coins

External References