SKH-1c-2016-11 Spiked Head

Description

Eleventh spiked head for the 2016 Philadelphia Mint Lincoln Shield Cent, this variety arrives midway through what would become a substantial catalog of die clash events for the date. By the eleventh entry, the 2016-P had established itself as a productive date for spiked head research — one where systematic roll searching would continue to yield new discoveries. A spiked head forms through the universal clash mechanism: the press cycles without a planchet, the obverse and reverse dies contact each other, and the Union Shield reverse transfers raised impressions into the obverse die that manifest as spikes on Lincoln's portrait. Eleven distinct die clash events implies eleven different die pairs experienced failures during the 2016-P production run, each leaving its unique spike signature. The Shield Cent design entered its seventh year of production in 2016, and annual spiked head documentation had become a routine part of die variety research. SKH-1c-2016-11 is cataloged by Cuds on Coins. The midpoint position of the eleventh entry within the 2016-P sequence illustrates the gradual, cumulative nature of die variety discovery — each new find builds upon the previous entries and extends the known catalog incrementally as more coins are examined.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Barbara Richardson
• Cross reference: none. 03/28/2018.
• Expert attribution by Cuds on Coins

External References