SKH-1c-1946-02 Spiked Head

Description

Second documented spiked head variety on the 1946 Lincoln wheat cent, SKH-1c-1946-02 records a second independent instance of die cracking at the portrait boundary during the first full post-war production year. The Cuds on Coins attribution service cataloged this variety using their standard naming convention, with the 02 suffix indicating it follows the previously documented SKH-1c-1946-01 as the second identified example. Philadelphia's staggering 1946 output of approximately 991.66 million wheat cents — nearly one billion coins from a single facility — created intense die service demands that inevitably produced multiple independent failure events across the working die inventory. Victor David Brenner's Lincoln portrait features the pronounced relief profile that concentrates mechanical stress at the bust-to-field transition boundary, making the portrait perimeter a predictable location for fatigue fractures under sustained production loading. Two documented spiked heads for 1946 provide a minimum count of independent dies that developed this specific failure mode during the year's production run, though additional undocumented examples almost certainly exist given the enormous number of dies consumed. The spike projection appears on struck coins as a raised line or protrusion extending from the portrait into the adjacent field, with each variety exhibiting unique spike characteristics — position around the portrait, length, direction, and thickness — that depend on the specific fracture geometry within each die. First listed on August 1, 2022, this variety was documented considerably later than the 01 entry (listed in 2016), demonstrating the ongoing nature of die variety research as new specimens surface and are compared against existing documentation. Collectors should examine the portrait boundary under 10x magnification, comparing any raised anomalies against both the 01 and 02 reference documentation to determine which specific die their specimen matches.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Marvin L
• Cross reference: none. 08/01/2022.
• Expert attribution by Cuds on Coins

External References