CU-5c-1974D-05 Cud

Description

Completing the documented sequence of five 1974-D Jefferson nickel cuds, CU-5c-1974D-05 carries the cross-reference JNC-74D-6 in the Jefferson Nickel Cuds registry. Five cuds from a single date-mintmark combination makes the 1974-D nickel one of the most thoroughly documented dates in the Jefferson nickel rim break census, rivaling the 1970-D and 1975-D issues for cud density. Denver produced 277.4 million nickels in 1974, a figure that required continuous die rotation across multiple presses and generated enough die usage to make five documented rim failures statistically plausible. The sequence from CU-5c-1974D-01 through -05 represents five individual die casualties: five separate moments when a die's rim integrity failed catastrophically, five sections of die steel that fractured and fell away, and five resulting groups of coins that entered the production stream bearing featureless raised masses where design elements should have appeared. The JNC cross-reference "74D-6" places this fifth Cuds on Coins entry as the sixth documented in the JNC system, again reflecting the different submission timelines between organizations. For collectors who pursue Jefferson nickel cuds comprehensively, the 1974-D date offers a rich hunting ground -- but locating all five documented varieties requires either dedicated roll searching through surviving 1974-D nickel stock or patient monitoring of the variety dealer market, where individual cuds surface intermittently as estates are dispersed and old collections are broken up. The copper-nickel alloy's hardness, the 22-ton striking force, and the quarter-billion-plus production volume combined to create the conditions that generated this five-piece cud constellation for the 1974-D Jefferson nickel.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Fred Weinberg
• Cross reference number: JNC-74D-6.
• Expert attribution by Cuds on Coins

External References