CU-1c-1902-01 Rim Cud

Description

Entering the twentieth century, the 1902 Indian Head Cent bearing cud CU-1c-1902-01 was produced at the Philadelphia Mint — the only facility striking Indian Head Cents throughout the series' fifty-year run from 1859 to 1909. Philadelphia's exclusive production means every Indian Head Cent cud variety traces to dies prepared and used at a single facility, giving researchers a consistent manufacturing context for comparing die failures across the series. The 1902 mintage of approximately 87.4 million pieces was among the largest in the series' history, reflecting the robust economy of the early Theodore Roosevelt era. The rim cud formed when a portion of the die's rim fractured under repeated striking stress, and planchet metal flowed into the resulting void to create the raised, shapeless area characteristic of cud varieties. As the sole documented cud for 1902, CU-1c-1902-01 stands as the only cataloged rim failure for a date that consumed many working dies, suggesting either that die quality control was effective in retiring damaged dies quickly or that surviving cud examples from this date remain largely unreported.

External References