1948 Variety WWHO-001

Description

Philadelphia Mint counterpart to the 1948-D WWHO-001, this Franklin Half Dollar variety shares the same Doubled Working Hub Obverse origin, confirming that the doubling was created at the hub level during the die manufacturing process and propagated to working dies used at both the Philadelphia and Denver Mints. The Wexler Team attribution documents a close spread to the southeast on the date and a close spread towards the center on IN GOD WE TRUST and LIBERTY — identical doubling characteristics to the Denver Mint version, as expected when both derive from the same doubled working hub. Because the error exists on the hub rather than on individual working dies, die markers differ for each of the affected working dies, as noted in the Wexler documentation. This means collectors may encounter different die states and secondary markers on different specimens, but the primary doubling pattern remains consistent across all coins struck from dies produced by the affected hub. The 1948 Philadelphia Mint Franklin Half Dollar carries a mintage of 3,006,814, the lowest mintage in the entire series and the inaugural issue of John R. Sinnock's design that replaced the Walking Liberty Half Dollar. Finding a hub-level doubling error on the very first year of a new series provides valuable information about the die production workflow that accompanied the design transition. The Wexler Variety ID is formally "1948 50c WWHO-001." No additional cross-references have been identified. The interconnection between the P-Mint and D-Mint versions of this WWHO demonstrates how a single error at one stage of die production can affect coinage across multiple facilities.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Various individuals Cross References: None known Comments: The same working hub doubling affected the obverse of the 1948 D-Mint half dollars.
• None known Comments: The same working hub doubling affected the obverse of the 1948 D-Mint half dollars.; Wexler Variety ID: 1948 50¢ WWHO-001
• Expert attribution by Wexler Team

External References