RCD-1c-1934-05R Retained Cud

Description

Cataloged by Cuds on Coins as RCD-1c-1934-05R, this retained cud was struck at the Philadelphia Mint during a year when the nation was beginning to emerge from the deepest trough of the Great Depression. Coin production had been severely curtailed during the worst years of the economic crisis, and by 1934, mintages were gradually climbing as New Deal programs stimulated commercial activity and renewed demand for circulating coinage. A retained cud develops when a section of the die face fractures along a crack that reaches the rim, yet the broken piece remains held in the die cavity rather than falling free. The resulting coin displays a raised, shapeless mass where the retained fragment presses into the planchet, often with a faint impression of the original design visible beneath the deformation. Philadelphia struck the 1934 Lincoln Wheat Cent without a mintmark, using the standard 95% copper, 5% tin-zinc bronze composition that had served the series since its debut in 1909. As the fifth retained cud documented for the 1934 Philadelphia cent, this variety indicates that die failures were a regular occurrence even as production volumes remained modest by pre-Depression standards. For Depression-era specialists, retained cuds from the mid-1930s represent the intersection of economic recovery and the everyday mechanical realities of coinage production.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Keith Christenson
• Expert attribution by Cuds on Coins

External References