1943-S Doubled Die Obverse DDO-007

Description

Medium spread on LIBERTY producing a full vertical bar — the strongest bar classification, indicating the doubled image creates a complete secondary vertical stroke spanning the full height of the affected letters — marks this seventh documented doubled die obverse for the 1943 San Francisco Mint Washington Silver Quarter. VarietyVista catalogs it under UVC-0357 with DMR-008, tracking three die stages: Stage A in Early Die State (unconfirmed), Stage B in Mid Die State (unconfirmed), and Stage C where both obverse and reverse are confirmed in Late Die State. The LDS confirmation with earlier stages unconfirmed suggests most known specimens come from late in the die's working life, potentially because the die was used extensively before the doubling attracted collector attention. The full vertical bar on LIBERTY is the strongest descriptor in the series for 1943-S DDOs, surpassing the 3/4 bar of DDO-009 and the 1/2 bar of DDO-012. San Francisco's 1943 quarter production reached 21.7 million pieces in 90% silver, struck during the height of World War II when the branch mint also supplied coinage for Pacific operations. The LIBERTY inscription on John Flanagan's Washington Quarter obverse — arranged on a curved baseline following the head's contour — acts as the primary diagnostic zone for detecting hub doubling, and seven documented DDO varieties for this wartime S-mint date confirms the depth of research applied to these silver quarters.

Die Markers

• UVC-0357
• DMR-008
• Stage A:
• EDS (unconfirmed)
• Stage B:
• MDS (unconfirmed)
• Stage C:
• Obverse and Reverse are LDS

Attribution History

• Discovered by Lee Hiemke
• Expert attribution by VarietyVista

External References