SKH-1c-2006D-01 Spiked Head

Description

Only documented spiked head for the 2006 Denver Mint Lincoln Memorial Cent, SKH-1c-2006D-01 was cataloged on February 3, 2021, by Cuds on Coins. Denver Mint spiked heads on Memorial Cents are consistently underdocumented compared to Philadelphia, and a solitary entry for 2006-D fits the broader pattern of sparse Denver die clash catalogs during the late Memorial Cent era. The die clash event that produced this spike occurred when the coining press cycled without a planchet, allowing the obverse and reverse dies to contact each other and transfer elements of Frank Gasparro's Lincoln Memorial reverse into the obverse die. The resulting raised spike on Lincoln's portrait carries positional and angular characteristics unique to this specific clash event and die pair. The 2006-D cent was produced at the Denver Mint during the third-to-last year of Memorial reverse production, placing it in the late twilight of a design that had been in continuous service since 1959. Denver's cent production in 2006 generated billions of coins across numerous die pairs, yet the single documented spiked head suggests either limited systematic searching of Denver rolls by die variety researchers, or that the specific production conditions at Denver that year produced fewer diagnostically prominent clash impressions. As the sole entry for 2006-D, this variety stands as both the founding and terminal catalog entry for its date and mint, representing the complete known record of die clash documentation for Denver's 2006 cent production.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Robert Oney
• Cross reference: none. 02/03/2021.
• Expert attribution by Cuds on Coins

External References