CU-1C-1994-04 Cud

Description

Cuds exist along a continuum from retained to fully separated, and CU-1C-1994-04 — an obverse cud on the 1994 Philadelphia Lincoln Memorial cent cataloged by Cuds on Coins — falls somewhere on that spectrum. A retained cud occurs when the die fragment cracks loose but remains partially seated, shifted or tilted but not entirely gone. Coins from a retained-cud die show a partially formed blob with faint traces of the original design visible beneath the displaced metal. A full cud results from complete fragment separation, leaving an open void that produces a clean, featureless raised area with no residual design detail. The distinction matters because retained cuds are generally scarcer — the partially seated fragment is unstable and tends to either fall out entirely or cause the Mint to retire the die quickly. Full cuds can persist for thousands of strikes because the absent fragment creates a stable void geometry. Cross-referenced as CU-1C-1994-04.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Chuck Newman & JC Stevens
• CU-1C-1994-04
• Expert attribution by Cuds on Coins

External References