2003 Doubled Die Reverse WDDR-003

Description

Following WDDR-002 in the early 2003 Philadelphia Lincoln Memorial Cent DDR census, WDDR-003 documents a third confirmed hub displacement event on dies prepared during the year Frank Gasparro passed away. The sculptor had seen his Memorial reverse produced for forty-four consecutive years — an extraordinary tenure for any coin design — and the working dies carrying WDDR-003's doubling were being manufactured and deployed at Philadelphia while Gasparro was in his final year. Beyond this biographical context, 2003 sits in the closing stretch of Memorial reverse production, with only five more full years remaining before the 2009 bicentennial designs. Varieties from these late years carry a finality that earlier dates lack: each cataloged entry narrows the remaining window of opportunity for new discoveries on a design approaching its end. The Memorial's twelve columns continued to register hub displacement with their characteristic precision, unchanged from 1959. Cross-referenced as Wexler Variety ID 2003 1c WDDR-003.

Attribution History

• Discovered by William Slaughter Cross References: None known
• None known; Wexler Variety ID: 2003 1¢ WDDR-003
• Expert attribution by Wexler Team

External References