1992 Radical MAD Die Clash MDC-1C-1992-01

Description

Discovered by Richard Imburgia, MDC-1C-1992-01 documents a radical misaligned die (MAD) clash on the 1992 Philadelphia Lincoln Memorial cent — an error created when the obverse and reverse dies strike each other without a planchet between them while one die is significantly displaced from its normal centered position. The result on this specimen is a faint impression from the edge of the field portion of the opposing die extending from the front of Lincoln's coat to the tail of the 9 in the date, tracing a curved arc across the obverse that represents the circular boundary of the misaligned reverse die's field. Faint letter traces interrupt what would otherwise be a smooth concave border along this arc, though the impression is too faint to determine which specific letters they represent — as Imburgia noted, the odds favor AMERICA as the source text, unless the clash also involved a rotated die, which would shift the angular position of the letter impressions and potentially place different reverse text at that location. The "radical" designation distinguishes this from ordinary die clashes, where the dies are roughly centered when they contact each other. In a radical MAD clash, the extreme misalignment means only a portion of one die's field contacts the other, producing the characteristic partial-arc impression rather than a full-field clash. Struck at Philadelphia on copper-plated zinc planchets composed of 97.5% zinc and 2.5% copper, weighing 2.5 grams and measuring 19mm.

External References