2005 Doubled Die Reverse WDDR-024

Description

Attributed by Brian Ribar and carrying the Wexler Variety ID 2005 P WDDR-024 Business Strike Ocean in View, this doubled die reverse variety appears on a 2005 Philadelphia Mint Jefferson nickel from the Westward Journey series. The Ocean in View design, created by Joe Fitzgerald and sculpted by Donna Weaver, depicts the Pacific coastline as Lewis and Clark would have viewed it, with the inscription "Ocean in view! O! The joy!" adapted from William Clark's journal entry of November 7, 1805. The coin is composed of 75% copper and 25% nickel, weighing 5.0 grams with a 21.2 mm diameter. The Westward Journey program ran in 2004 and 2005 with two new reverse designs each year, commemorating the Lewis and Clark expedition's bicentennial. Cross-referenced as CDDR-033 and CONECA DDR-038, this variety is documented across multiple attribution services, confirming its legitimacy and providing collectors with alternative reference numbers. The Ocean in View reverse's landscape design, featuring coastline, water, trees, and Clark's famous quotation, offered a dramatically different topography for doubled die hunting compared to the familiar Monticello that had graced the nickel's reverse since 1938. The detailed text of the journal quotation, with its punctuation marks and varying letter sizes, provides particularly useful reference points for detecting hub doubling, as even slight displacement becomes apparent against the regularized spacing and alignment of engraved text. Brian Ribar's attribution work on the Westward Journey series has documented a substantial number of DDR varieties on both the 2004 and 2005 designs, and WDDR-024 represents one of the earlier discoveries in what became a productive area of variety research as collectors intensively studied this limited-issue commemorative program.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Brian Ribar
• CDDR-033/CONECA DDR-038; Wexler Variety ID: 2005 P WDDR-024 Business Strike Ocean in View
• Expert attribution by Brian Ribar

External References