1902 Indian Head Cent - CU-1c-1902-01 Rim Cud

Description

Entering the twentieth century, the 1902 Indian Head Cent bearing cud CU-1c-1902-01 was produced at the Philadelphia Mint, the only mint striking Indian Head Cents until San Francisco joined in 1908. Philadelphia's exclusive production means every Indian Head Cent cud variety traces to dies prepared and used at a single facility, giving researchers a consistent manufacturing context for comparing die failures across the series. The 1902 mintage of approximately 87.4 million pieces was among the largest in the series' history, reflecting the robust economy of the early Theodore Roosevelt era. The rim cud formed when part of the die's rim gutter was lost under repeated striking stress, leaving a raised interruption in the design rim that tracks the rim's course. As the sole documented cud for 1902, CU-1c-1902-01 stands as the only cataloged rim failure for a date that consumed many working dies, suggesting either that die quality control was effective in retiring damaged dies quickly or that surviving cud examples from this date remain largely unreported.

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