SKH-1c-2000-01 Spiked Head

Description

Millennial-year production at the Philadelphia Mint yielded this inaugural spiked head variety for the 2000-P Lincoln Memorial Cent, documented by Cuds on Coins on February 16, 2017. The turn of the millennium was marked by heightened collector interest in all aspects of coinage bearing the year 2000 date, yet the 2000-P spiked head catalog has remained small, with this -01 entry standing as one of very few documented examples. The Philadelphia Mint's cent production in 2000 was substantial — billions of coins requiring hundreds of die pairs — yet the modest spiked head count may reflect a lack of focused searching rather than an absence of varieties. Die clashes on Memorial Cents produce their characteristic spike through a well-understood mechanism: the press cycles without a planchet, the Lincoln Memorial reverse contacts the obverse die, and the Memorial's columns and detailed architecture transfer into the die face. Subsequent coins display a raised spike on Lincoln's portrait whose position and angle identify the specific die pair involved. As the first documented spiked head for the 2000-P, this variety serves as the anchor point for the date's catalog and the only confirmed evidence that at least one die pair from that year's production experienced a clash event. The early 2017 documentation date places this discovery during the formative years of systematic Memorial Cent spiked head research, when the Cuds on Coins database was actively expanding its coverage across all dates. Collectors who undertake focused searching of 2000-P cent inventories may well discover additional spiked heads that would expand this currently minimal catalog.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Frank Waddell
• Cross reference: none. 02/16/2017.
• Expert attribution by Cuds on Coins

External References