SKH-1c-2014-27 Spiked Head

Description

Closing out the documented 2014 spiked head census at twenty-seven, SKH-1c-2014-27 confirms that at least twenty-seven distinct die fractures at the portrait-rim junction were recorded for this single year of Lincoln Shield Cent production. The difference between this entry and its predecessor, SKH-1c-2014-26, is not severity but die identity — each number in the Cuds on Coins catalog corresponds to a unique working die that developed its own crack. Collectors pursuing a complete set of 2014 spiked heads face a substantial but finite challenge. The appeal of spiked head collecting lies partly in its affordability: because these varieties occur on circulating cents, acquisition cost is minimal compared to classic error types like off-center strikes or wrong planchet errors. What collectors invest instead is time — hours of roll searching and careful examination under magnification. The 2014 Philadelphia cent maintains the specifications established decades earlier: 2.5 grams of copper-plated zinc on a 19mm planchet, struck without a mintmark, carrying Brenner's portrait and Bass's Shield in a pairing that by 2014 had become familiar to a new generation.

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