SKH-1c-1972-05 Spiked Head

Description

Attributed on January 12, 2017, by the Cuds on Coins team, SKH-1c-1972-05 marks the fifth documented spiked head for the 1972 Philadelphia Lincoln Memorial cent and the first attribution for this date recorded in 2017. No cross-references to external catalogs have been established. The January 2017 date follows the October 2016 attribution of SKH-1c-1972-04 by approximately three months, maintaining the consistent pace of new discoveries that characterized the buildup of the 1972-P spiked head catalog during this period. Reaching five documented varieties for a single Philadelphia date demonstrates that portrait-apex die cracking was not an isolated phenomenon but rather a recurring failure mode affecting multiple dies across the 1972 production year. The Philadelphia Mint produced approximately 2.93 billion Lincoln cents in 1972 — requiring extensive die rotation and replacement throughout the year — and a small percentage of those obverse dies inevitably developed the fatigue cracks that manifest as spiked heads on struck coins. For collectors assembling a specialized collection of 1972-P spiked head varieties, SKH-1c-1972-05 represents an entry from the middle period of catalog documentation (2017), by which point the attribution team had developed considerable experience in distinguishing new varieties from previously documented ones. The identification methodology requires careful comparison of spike geometry against all earlier catalog entries to ensure a given specimen represents a genuinely new die rather than a die-state variant of a previously attributed one.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Dustin Ickow
• Cross reference: none. 01/12/2017.
• Expert attribution by Cuds on Coins

External References