CU-1C-1990D-01 Cud

Description

The first cataloged cud for the 1990 Denver Mint Lincoln Memorial cent, CU-1C-1990D-01 documents a die fracture on a cent struck during a year of significant production changes at the U.S. Mint. Beginning in 1990, mint marks were placed on the master die rather than individually hand-punched onto each working die — a modernization that standardized mint mark position and eliminated the repunched mint mark varieties that had enriched the error coin hobby for over a century. This change had no bearing on cud formation, however: cuds result from fatigue fractures in the die rim that are governed by striking force, die metallurgy, and total impression count rather than by how the die design was applied. The "D" embedded in the cross-reference designation CU-1C-1990D-01 confirms this as a Denver Mint die break, distinguishing it from any Philadelphia Mint cuds that may exist for the same year. Denver struck approximately 4.92 billion Lincoln cents in 1990, a production volume that subjected thousands of working dies to the cumulative stress of high-speed coining. The cud's cataloging in the Cuds on Coins registry preserves it as a documented specimen of Denver die failure from this transitional production year. Struck at the Denver Mint on a copper-plated zinc planchet (97.5% zinc, 2.5% copper) at 2.5 grams and 19mm diameter.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Recclm50 on ebay
• CU-1C-1990D-01
• Expert attribution by Cuds on Coins

External References