1941-S Repunched Mintmark WRPM-012

Description

Cataloged by the Wexler Team as 1941-S 1¢ WRPM-012 with no additional cross-references currently known, this Lincoln Wheat Cent features an S/S North repunched mintmark — the secondary S impression is positioned north (above) the primary, indicating the mintmark punch was initially placed slightly too low and corrected upward on the second strike. The die markers note a small S mint mark, distinguishing it from varieties that used a larger S punch, as the San Francisco Mint employed different sizes of mintmark punches across various production periods. On the obverse, a faint die gouge is visible to the right and in line with the top of the Y in LIBERTY, extending to the edge of Lincoln's jacket just below the back of the neck — a diagnostically useful marker because its path from the inscription area to the portrait's clothing detail spans a significant portion of the obverse, making it detectable even on moderately circulated specimens. The 1941-S Lincoln Wheat Cent was struck at the San Francisco Mint in the standard bronze composition of 95% copper and 5% tin and zinc, weighing 3.11 grams with a diameter of 19.05 mm. Victor David Brenner designed the obverse Lincoln portrait, and the wheat ears reverse served from 1909 through 1958. The 1941-S had a mintage of approximately 92.4 million pieces, struck in the months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor drew the United States into World War II. Repunched mintmark varieties from the early 1940s San Francisco Mint document the hand-punching methodology where each working die received its S mintmark individually through a manual steel punch process — a technique that continued at the branch mints until the shift to master die-applied mintmarks in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Attribution History

• Discovered by David Mulberry Cross References: None known
• None known; Wexler Variety ID: 1941-S 1¢ WRPM-012
• Expert attribution by Wexler Team

External References