CU-1C-1996-02 Cud

Description

Second in the catalog of 1996 Philadelphia cent cuds, CU-1C-1996-02 documents a rim break from a year when the United States Mint was operating at peak late-twentieth-century efficiency. Coining press technology, die steel metallurgy, and quality control protocols had all advanced significantly since the early decades of cent production, yet the irreducible physics of metal fatigue ensured that rim fractures continued to occur at a base rate proportional to the number of dies in service. Philadelphia's 1996 cent mintage exceeded six billion pieces, requiring thousands of working die pairs whose cumulative service lives spanned hundreds of millions of individual strikes. Among that vast die population, some percentage inevitably developed rim-reaching cracks, and CU-1C-1996-02 preserves one such failure. The second confirmed cud for the date, it demonstrates that the 1996-P cent — while overshadowed in variety collecting by the landmark 1995 issues — still contributed documented die-failure varieties to the expanding CudsOnCoins reference catalog. Collectors searching 1996 cent rolls benefit from the continued availability of this date in circulation hoards and bank inventory.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Fred Weinberg
• CU-1C-1996-02
• Expert attribution by Cuds on Coins

External References