1993 (P) Jefferson Nickel - SKH-5c-1993P-01 Spiked Head

Description

Inaugurating the spiked head catalog for the 1993 Philadelphia Mint Jefferson Nickel, this first entry for the date establishes that cracked obverse dies of this kind were recorded during the fifty-fifth year of the original Jefferson design's production run. The spiked head forms when a crack opens in the obverse die between the rim and Jefferson's bust and fills with metal during striking. The resulting raised protrusion on Jefferson's portrait carries the specific positional characteristics unique to this individual crack. Philadelphia Mint nickel production in 1993 maintained the consistent volume needed to supply commercial demand, consuming numerous die pairs throughout the year, some of which cracked during their operational life. The -01 sequence number designates this as the pioneering spiked head discovery for 1993-P, the reference against which subsequent entries are compared. Cataloged by Cuds on Coins on March 21, 2016, this variety carries no known cross-references. The original Jefferson Nickel design by Felix Schlag entered its fifty-fifth year in 1993, and the mature die production infrastructure supporting this long-running design type had been optimized over decades of continuous manufacturing, yet dies still cracked in service throughout the series.

Cross References

• Cross reference: none. 03/21/2016.

External References