2009 Doubled Die Reverse DDR-038

Description

Exhibiting strong spread directed southwest, DDR-038 on the 2009 Lincoln Bicentennial Cent creates extra log ends on logs number 10 and 11 counted from the bottom of the cabin depicted on the reverse. This variety appears on the "Birth and Early Childhood in Kentucky" design, the first of the four 2009 Bicentennial reverses, which portrays the log cabin where Abraham Lincoln was born near Hodgenville, Kentucky, in 1809. Die markers UVC-2767 and DMR-041 from VarietyVista track this working die through a noteworthy Stage A progression: the reverse begins in early die state, but the obverse develops a die crack on Lincoln's forehead during early-to-mid die state (EMDS), providing a secondary diagnostic that helps collectors gauge the die state of their specimens. Stages B and C remain unconfirmed. The strong southwest spread on logs 10 and 11 creates visually compelling extra ends — the horizontal log courses of the cabin wall provide clean reference lines, and when the secondary hub impression displaces these lines southwest, the extra log ends protrude beyond the cabin's corner like phantom extensions of the original logs. Richard Masters designed and Charles Vickers sculpted this reverse, and the rustic cabin with its stacked log construction offered a richly textured diagnostic surface. The designation "strong" for the spread intensity indicates this is among the more prominent DDRs for the Birth in Kentucky reverse, where the displacement magnitude on the affected logs exceeds the threshold for easy detection under standard 7x-10x magnification. The forehead die crack at Stage A provides a useful die state chronology marker for determining when in the die's service life a particular specimen was struck.

Die Markers

• UVC-2767
• DMR-041
• Stage A:
• Reverse is EDS
• Die crack on forehead – EMDS
• Stage B:
• MDS (unconfirmed)
• Stage C:
• LDS (unconfirmed)

Attribution History

• Discovered by Dave Ferrebee
• Expert attribution by VarietyVista

External References