SKH-1c-1986-10 Spiked Head

Description

Reaching double digits in the spiked head census for a single date-mint combination, SKH-1c-1986-10 on the 1986 Philadelphia Lincoln Memorial cent underscores how systematically the Lincoln portrait design produces die cracks at its highest relief point. Ten or more spiked heads from one year is unusual across the broader Lincoln cent series — most dates yield only a handful — but the 1986-P production run of nearly 4.5 billion coins required an exceptionally large die population, amplifying the probability that multiple dies would develop crown-origin cracks during their service lives. The Cuds on Coins catalog, which tracks spiked heads alongside cuds and other die break varieties, has documented fifteen total spiked heads for 1986-P, making it one of the most thoroughly cataloged dates for this variety type. SKH-10's position in the census is determined by submission order rather than production chronology, so it is not necessarily the tenth die to develop a spiked head during the year's coining — it is the tenth reported and cataloged. Attribution requires matching the spike's angle, width, and field position against reference imagery, since each entry in the fifteen-variety series carries geometrically distinct crack characteristics. Struck at Philadelphia (no mint mark) on copper-plated zinc planchets (97.5% zinc, 2.5% copper) at 2.5 grams and 19mm.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Mitch Wilkinson
• Cross reference: none. 02/13/2023.
• Expert attribution by Cuds on Coins

External References