1972 Lincoln Memorial Cent - SKH-1c-1972-13 Spiked Head

Description

Documented on June 10, 2020, by the Cuds on Coins attribution team, SKH-1c-1972-13 represents the thirteenth spiked head cataloged for the 1972 Philadelphia Lincoln Memorial cent. No cross-references to external attribution services have been established. The June 2020 date places this attribution more than a year after the twelfth entry (March 2019), reflecting the increasingly sporadic pace of new discoveries as the most accessible population of 1972-P cents has been progressively searched by collectors. The spiked head phenomenon on Lincoln cents results from the fundamental physics of die cavity design: the portrait apex creates the deepest recess in the die, concentrating mechanical stress at that point during each of the thousands of impact cycles the die endures throughout its service life. When the cumulative fatigue exceeds the local material's endurance limit, a crack nucleates and grows along grain boundaries toward the die surface. SKH-1c-1972-13 documents another instance of this process on a 1972 Philadelphia die — the thirteenth proven example of portrait-apex failure from this single date and mint, further demonstrating how high-volume production conditions at the Philadelphia Mint drove die fatigue beyond sustainable limits across numerous individual dies during the year.

Cross References

• Cross reference: none. 06/10/2020.

External References