SKH-1c-1972-11 Spiked Head

Description

The eleventh and final documented spiked head for the 1972 Philadelphia Lincoln Memorial cent, SKH-1c-1972-11 was attributed by the Cuds on Coins team on October 31, 2018 — approximately seven months after the rapid March 2018 cluster that produced varieties 08 through 10. No cross-references to other attribution services have been established. As the highest-numbered entry in the 1972-P spiked head catalog, SKH-1c-1972-11 represents the current boundary of documented die failures for this date and mint — though additional undiscovered varieties almost certainly exist within the enormous surviving population of 1972 Philadelphia cents. The October 2018 attribution date places this variety's formal documentation more than two years after the first spiked head (March 2016) was cataloged for 1972-P, encompassing a period during which systematic searching by dedicated collectors steadily expanded the known census from a single variety to eleven. Each entry documents a distinct obverse die whose service life ended (or whose production was continued despite) the formation of a portrait-apex fatigue crack — the characteristic failure mode that unites all spiked head varieties regardless of date, mint, or position in the catalog sequence. At eleven varieties, the 1972 Philadelphia spiked head catalog stands as comprehensive documentation of the die failure phenomenon for this historically significant date — a date already famous for its extraordinary doubled die varieties and now equally well-documented for its portrait-region die deterioration patterns.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Nicholas Hurley
• Cross reference: none. 10/31/2018.
• Expert attribution by Cuds on Coins

External References