1964 Doubled Working Hub Reverse WWHR-003

Description

Third and final documented doubled working hub reverse for the 1964 Jefferson Nickel, attributed by the Wexler Team as Wexler Variety ID: 1964 Working Hub Reverse 1 (WWHR-003). Three separate working hubs exhibiting doubling from a single year is an unusually high count that speaks to the extraordinary production pressure placed on the Mint in 1964, when the developing coin shortage was driving both Philadelphia and Denver to maximum output. The die manufacturing pipeline — master die to working hub to working die — was operating at capacity to supply the presses striking over a billion nickels, and quality control at the hubbing stage may have been relaxed to maintain die supply. Each of these three doubled working hubs would have propagated its unique doubling pattern to every working die it produced, potentially affecting different segments of the total 1964 nickel output with distinct but related varieties. The WWHR-003 variety completes a trio that together represents three instances where the Monticello reverse received a doubled impression at the hub level during 1964. Felix Schlag's architectural rendering of Jefferson's estate, with its columns, dome, and stepped entrance, provides detailed design elements where even subtle hub-level displacement becomes detectable under magnification — particularly on the columned portico and lettering of MONTICELLO.

Attribution History

• Wexler Variety ID: 1964 Working Hub Reverse 1 (WWHR-003)
• Expert attribution by Wexler Team

External References