SKH-10c-1999P-01 Spiked Head

Description

Closing out the 1990s in the Roosevelt Dime spiked head timeline, SKH-10c-1999P-01 documents a die clash on the 1999 Philadelphia Mint dime — the final year before the Y2K transition that dominated public discourse. The 1999-P dime was produced alongside the inaugural year of the 50 State Quarters program, when Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut received their commemorative reverse designs, dramatically expanding collector interest in circulating coinage and creating unprecedented public engagement with the Mint's products. Despite this focus on quarters, dime production continued at pace, and die clash events occurred predictably when the press cycled without planchets feeding between the dies. The torch reverse transferred its detail into the obverse die during such an event, creating the raised spike on Roosevelt's portrait that defines this variety category. As the sole documented spiked head for 1999-P, SKH-10c-1999P-01 may represent the tip of an undiscovered iceberg, since the overwhelming collector focus on State Quarters during 1999 likely diverted attention from systematic dime variety research. Cataloged by Cuds on Coins with documentation dated March 25, 2021, this variety was identified more than two decades after the coins were struck — a discovery lag that highlights the research potential remaining in Roosevelt Dime populations from the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Robert Oney
• Cross reference: none. 03/25/2021.
• Expert attribution by Cuds on Coins

External References