SKH-25c-2002P-01(TN) Spiked Head

Description

Tennessee's entry in the State Quarter spiked head record, SKH-25c-2002P-01(TN) was first reported on March 29, 2022, on the 2002 Philadelphia Mint issue. Tennessee's State Quarter reverse is one of the most musically themed designs in the program, featuring a fiddle, a trumpet, and a guitar representing the state's three distinct musical traditions — country, blues, and rock and roll — with the text "Musical Heritage" and three stars for the state's three grand divisions. When this multi-element musical reverse clashed with the Washington obverse die during a planchet feed failure, the instruments and stars transferred design elements that produced a raised spike on Washington's portrait. As the sole documented spiked head for the 2002-P Tennessee quarter, this variety represents the only confirmed die clash artifact for this state-and-mint combination. The relatively late reporting date of March 2022 — twenty years after the coins were struck — suggests that either the variety was only recently identified or that previous discoveries had not been formally submitted to the catalog. Tennessee was the sixteenth state released in the 50 State Quarters program, part of the 2002 roster alongside Ohio, Louisiana, Indiana, and Mississippi. Cataloged by Cuds on Coins with no established cross-references, SKH-25c-2002P-01(TN) documents the die clash occurrence on a reverse design that many collectors consider one of the most artistically successful in the State Quarters series, capturing Tennessee's cultural identity in a composition that translates the energy of live music performance into numismatic art.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Jason Coplin
• Cross reference: none. 03/29/2022.
• Expert attribution by Cuds on Coins

External References