SKH-1c-1973D-07 Spiked Head

Description

Cataloged on June 10, 2021, by the Cuds on Coins attribution team, SKH-1c-1973D-07 is the seventh spiked head variety documented for the 1973 Denver Mint Lincoln Memorial cent. No cross-references have been established with other attribution services. The June 2021 date places this entry approximately six months after the sixth variety (December 2020), maintaining a roughly semi-annual discovery pace that characterized the 2020-2021 expansion of the 1973-D spiked head catalog. Seven documented instances of portrait-apex fatigue failure from a single date and mint establish the 1973-D cent as one of the more prolific sources of this variety type within the Lincoln Memorial series. The phenomenon's prevalence correlates directly with die usage intensity: Denver's 1973 output of approximately 3.55 billion cents imposed extreme service demands on each obverse die, with individual dies routinely producing hundreds of thousands of strikes before replacement. Under these conditions, the probability of fatigue crack initiation at the die cavity's deepest point — Lincoln's portrait apex — increases substantially over the die's operational lifetime. SKH-1c-1973D-07 documents another die that reached this failure threshold, producing coins with the characteristic raised spike at the top of Lincoln's head. The variety is distinguished from the six preceding entries by its spike's unique combination of angle, length, width, base location, and curvature — parameters dictated by the specific microstructural path the fatigue crack followed through the die steel.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Patrick (Mike) Winstead
• Cross reference: none. 06/10/2021.
• Expert attribution by Cuds on Coins

External References