SKH-1c-1959-03 Spiked Head

Description

Memorial Cent die variety cataloging remains less comprehensive than documentation for the preceding Wheat Cent series, and SKH-1c-1959-03 exemplifies this gap. The third documented spiked head die for the 1959 Philadelphia Memorial Cent, this variety has not yet been assigned a Cohen Index number. The Wheat-to-Memorial transition created a natural divide in variety research — the Wheat Cent had nearly fifty years of accumulated study by 1958, while the Memorial series started fresh with a new generation building documentation from the ground up. Many Memorial spiked head varieties await formal catalog assignment, even though the obverse phenomenon is identical to what produced cataloged Wheat Cent spike heads. The raised spike extends from Lincoln's portrait where a fatigue crack opened a channel for struck metal, identifiable through the same diagnostic criteria used for Wheat Cent spiked heads: spike position, angle, length, and secondary die markers. Future catalog updates may assign formal numbers to varieties like this one as Memorial Cent research matures.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Robert Oney
• Cross reference number:  Cohen not listed. 04/09/2020.
• Expert attribution by Cuds on Coins

External References