SKH-1c-2004-03 Spiked Head

Description

Matching the 2003 count at three documented spiked heads, SKH-1c-2004-03 reveals a consistent baseline of portrait-rim cracking during the early 2000s Memorial cent era. The parallel counts across consecutive years — three in 2003, three in 2004 — suggest either a stable rate of die failure or a consistent level of collector attention, or both operating in concert. These early-2000s Memorial cents were struck during the final chapter of Gasparro's reverse design, which would be replaced by four rotating Bicentennial designs in 2009 and then Bass's Shield in 2010. Collectors who focus on the Memorial era sometimes overlook early-2000s dates in favor of the more heavily cataloged 1990s, making 2004 spiked heads potentially underreported. The mechanism producing them was unchanged: cyclic fatigue at the portrait-rim boundary generated a fracture in the die steel that transferred as a raised line on struck coins. Philadelphia's copper-plated zinc cents bore no mintmark, and each weighed 2.5 grams on a 19mm planchet. Cuds on Coins assigned this third position in the 2004 spiked head sequence.

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