1972 (D) Lincoln Memorial Cent - SKH-1c-1972D-22 Spike Head

Description

SKH-1c-1972D-22 is a spike head on the 1972-D Lincoln Memorial cent. The variety bears no cross-references to external attribution services. This attribution challenge intensifies with each new catalog entry, as the discriminating features between varieties become increasingly subtle. The spiked head phenomenon continues to demonstrate remarkable consistency as a failure mode across dozens of different obverse dies: the same stress concentration at the portrait apex, the same fatigue crack initiation mechanism, but expressed in a unique geometric pattern each time due to the stochastic nature of crack propagation through polycrystalline die steel. For collectors building comprehensive 1972-D die variety sets, SKH-1c-1972D-22 represents a later-period discovery that may have a smaller attributed population in collector hands than the earlier-numbered varieties that have been publicly documented for a longer period and have benefited from greater collector awareness over time.

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