SKH-25c-1999P-05(GA) Spiked Head

Description

Cataloged on September 12, 2018, by Cuds on Coins, this fifth spiked head for the 1999 Philadelphia Mint Georgia State Quarter documents a die clash event on one of the program's most widely struck inaugural designs. The State Quarters program revolutionized American coin collecting when it launched in 1999, and the five inaugural state designs — including Georgia's peach, state outline, and live oak branches — were produced in unprecedented quantities to satisfy collector demand that exceeded all Mint projections. This massive production consumed extraordinary numbers of die pairs at Philadelphia, and the high-speed coining operations that characterized the program's output created frequent opportunities for planchet feed failures resulting in die clashes. When the Georgia reverse die and the Washington obverse die contacted each other without a planchet between them, elements of the reverse design transferred into the obverse die, creating a raised spike on Washington's portrait. Five spiked heads documented for the Georgia Quarter by 2018 represents continuing research into a population that had been in circulation for nearly two decades by that point. Each of the five varieties is distinguished by the unique position and character of its spike on Washington's profile — the obverse portrait by William Cousins (after John Flanagan's original) that served as the constant design element across all fifty State Quarter reverses. State Quarter spiked heads from 1999 carry particular collecting appeal due to their first-year-of-program provenance and the nostalgia associated with the program's launch.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Shane Daniel
• Cross reference: none. 09/12/2018.
• Expert attribution by Cuds on Coins

External References