1997 Doubled Die Reverse WDDR-022

Description

Twenty-second in the 1997 Philadelphia Mint Lincoln Memorial Cent DDR census, WDDR-022 occupies the upper-middle range of a catalog that would eventually extend past forty entries. The jump from WDDR-017 to WDDR-022 — spanning four intervening varieties — underscores the density of doubled die research on this date, where Philadelphia's high-volume cent production required hundreds of working dies and correspondingly multiplied the opportunities for hub displacement events. Each working die began as a blank steel cylinder that received the Memorial reverse design through multiple hubbing impressions, and any misalignment between those impressions — whether from mechanical tolerance, operator positioning, or hub wear — could produce a doubled die variety. The 1997 production year fell near the end of the Memorial reverse's long run, when the design had been refined and standardized over nearly four decades but the fundamental hubbing process still relied on mechanical precision that occasionally varied. Cataloged as Wexler Variety ID 1997 1c WDDR-022 and attributed by the Wexler Team.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Steve Young Cross References: None known
• None known; Wexler Variety ID: 1997 1¢ WDDR-022
• Expert attribution by Wexler Team

External References