IDB-1c-2020-02 Interior Die Break

Description

Second cataloged interior die break for the 2020 Philadelphia Mint Lincoln Shield Cent in the Cuds on Coins registry. Interior die breaks differ from rim cuds in that the fracture occurs entirely within the die face rather than connecting to the edge — the resulting raised area of unstruck metal appears as an isolated island or irregular shape within the coin's design field rather than extending from the rim. This distinction makes interior die breaks rarer and often more visually distinctive than their rim-connected counterparts, as the enclosed break must propagate and detach without the mechanical advantage of an edge-connected crack. Philadelphia Mint, zinc-core copper-plated composition. The 2020 Lincoln Shield Cent was produced in substantial quantities during a year of extraordinary demand driven by pandemic-era coin circulation disruptions. Interior die breaks on modern high-production cents document the stress limits of current die steel under sustained striking pressure, preserving metallurgical evidence of failure modes that occur entirely within the working surface. The IDB prefix in the Cuds on Coins catalog systematically separates these interior fractures from rim-connected cuds for research purposes.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Matthew Vallee
• Cross reference: None. 03/16/2023.
• Expert attribution by Cuds on Coins

External References