1944-S Doubled Die Reverse WDDR-002

Description

Second documented doubled die reverse for the 1944 San Francisco Mint Lincoln Wheat Cent, WDDR-002 provides early evidence in the DDR catalog that San Francisco's wartime cent production was generating hub doubling events alongside the more prolific Philadelphia and Denver facilities. The San Francisco Mint struck cents from the same recycled brass shell casing alloy used at the other two mints in 1944, but typically at lower volume, which means that proportionally fewer die pairs were consumed and fewer DDR opportunities existed. Nevertheless, WDDR-002 as the second cataloged DDR confirms that hub misalignment during die manufacture was not unique to any single facility. The hubbing process — where the working hub impresses the working die through multiple passes to fully transfer the Wheat Cent design — carried the same risk of misregistration at San Francisco as at any other mint. The key diagnostic difference between WDDR-001 and WDDR-002 lies in the specific direction, class, and magnitude of the doubling, as each represents a completely independent hub misalignment event during different die manufacturing sessions. Attributed by the Wexler Team under Wexler Variety ID: 1944-S 1¢ WDDR-002, this variety adds to the multi-mint wartime DDR documentation that covers all three operating facilities during the critical 1943-1945 production years.

Attribution History

• Wexler Variety ID: 1944-S 1¢ WDDR-002
• Expert attribution by Wexler Team

External References