CU-1C-1988D-15 Cud

Description

Numbered well above its neighbors in this batch, the jump from CU-1C-1988D-02 to CU-1C-1988D-15 reflects the intervening twelve cud varieties — CU-03 through CU-14 — that are cataloged elsewhere in the database for this date and mintmark. Fifteen documented cuds for the 1988-D Lincoln Memorial cent represents a healthy population of die failures from Denver's production, consistent with the high volume of dies consumed during a year when the Denver facility produced billions of cents. CU-15 itself documents one of the later-cataloged breaks, and its higher sequence number suggests it was discovered after systematic searching of the 1988-D population was already well underway. Cuds on later-discovered dies often represent subtler breaks or specimens from less-thoroughly-searched populations — coins that sat in bags, rolls, or dealer accumulations for years before a dedicated error collector examined them. The forensic appeal of cud collecting lies in reconstructing what happened inside the coining press: the break geometry reveals where the die's fatigue crack initiated, the break's depth indicates how much die material separated, and the metal flow pattern within the cud itself records the pressure distribution during the strikes that followed the break. Struck at the Denver Mint on copper-plated zinc planchets composed of 97.5% zinc and 2.5% copper, weighing 2.5 grams and measuring 19mm.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Donald Wade
• CU-1C-1988D-15
• Expert attribution by Cuds on Coins

External References