RCD-1c-1906-01R Retained Cud

Description

The primary retained cud for the 1906 Indian Head Cent, the RCD-1c-1906-01R documents die rim failure in the antepenultimate year of America's second one-cent design. With only three years of Indian Head production remaining (1907, 1908, and 1909), the 1906 date represents the late twilight of a series that began during the presidency of James Buchanan and would end under William Howard Taft. The Philadelphia Mint produced approximately 96.0 million cents in 1906 — the highest mintage in the Indian Head series to that point — and this record output demanded an enormous number of working dies. A retained cud preserves the moment when a die rim fragment has fractured but not separated, producing a raised irregular mass on struck coins that partially obscures the adjacent design. The record production level for 1906 placed exceptional stress on the Mint's die inventory, and the presence of documented retained cuds from this peak year directly reflects the mechanical demands of high-volume coinage production. Attributed by Cuds on Coins, the 1906 Indian Head Cent's retained cud serves as physical evidence of the industrial-scale die consumption at the Philadelphia Mint during the final years of the Gilded Age.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Fred Weinberg
• Expert attribution by Cuds on Coins

External References