CU-1C-1986-08 Cud

Description

Philadelphia Mint production during the mid-1980s operated under intense volume pressure, and CU-1C-1986-08 on the 1986 Lincoln Memorial cent is a direct artifact of that environment. The combined Philadelphia and Denver cent output for 1986 exceeded 8.9 billion coins — a staggering figure that required both facilities to run multiple coining presses in continuous shifts. At Philadelphia alone, the 4,491,395,493 cents produced demanded a relentless pace of die installation, use, and replacement. Each working die pair had a finite service life measured in hundreds of thousands of impressions, and the sheer number of dies consumed annually increased the probability that some would develop fractures severe enough to produce cuds before being flagged for replacement. Press operators conducting periodic visual inspections had limited time to examine each coin emerging from their press, and subtle die breaks could produce hundreds or thousands of cud-bearing coins before detection. The economics of cent production — where each coin's face value barely covered its manufacturing cost — created additional pressure to maximize die life, potentially extending service into the zone where fracture risk escalated sharply. CU-1C-1986-08 is cataloged under its Cuds on Coins designation. Struck on copper-plated zinc planchets (97.5% zinc, 2.5% copper) at 2.5 grams and 19mm.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Keynumis on ebay
• CU-1C-1986-08
• Expert attribution by Cuds on Coins

External References