1972 Lincoln Cent Doubled Dies obverse what to look for.
1972 Lincoln Cent Doubled Dies can still be cherry picked from rolls and coin shows. A very important point about the 1972 Doubled dies is that you need to know the difference between a the 1972 doubled dies and the 1972 master hub doubling.
1972 Lincoln Cent Doubled Dies vs. 1972 master hub doubling
1972 Lincoln Cent Doubled Dies are only half the problem that occurred in 1972. The US might apparently had an issue with the master die becoming doubled. In 1972 the Philadelphia mint produced nearly 3 Billion Lincoln cents. Approximately half of those may have been affected by the master die doubling, rendering this type of doubling worth merely one cent.
Then comes along the true 1972 Lincoln Cent Doubled Dies. I am sure there has been and currently continues to be some confusion between the two types. I hope the following information and comparison will make it easier to understand and help you know the difference between the 1972 Lincoln Cent Doubled Dies and the 1972 master die doubling.
SPOILER Alert !
I chose one of the very late stage dies I could find. This example – though heavy abraded ( scratches and polishing marks from die maintenance) it still shows up well enough to hopefully get the point across. This may benefit the Coin Roll Hunters who coins in rolls may not be the best of quality.
1972 Lincoln Cent Doubled Dies
One of the FIRST place that I look is on the obverse of the coin at LIBERTY. Look to the bottom of the letters, LIB. There should be some slight separation between LIB to the North and South. In most, if not all 1972 Lincoln Cent Doubled Dies, I have seen this LIB separation. Look at the BOTTOM of LIB, although slight, the separation on the LIB is there for the 1972 Lincoln Cent Doubled Dies. Even the middle horizontal bar shows doubling on this 1972 Lincoln Cent Doubled Dies.
Now on to the rest of LIBERTY. On 1972 Lincoln Cent Doubled Dies, the horizontal crossbar “T’s”…. In LIBERTY and TRUST are normal and level.
On the 1972 master hub doubling , they look abnormal. The intersection of the “T” in LIBERTY where the horizontal part and the leg of the “T” meet, is the highest part of that “T”. The “T” in LIBERTY almost looks like it is slightly bowed.
Again on the 1972 Lincoln Cent Doubled Dies, the “T” in LIBERTY should look normal.
For the 1972 Lincoln Cent Doubled Dies, The word IN which is part of IN GOD WE TRUST, will show up as doubled. The most important thing to note about the word IN is that the top left portion of the “N” does not appear to be broken.
The very slightly lower doubling on this coin is evident on the LEFT side of the letters on this 1972 Doubled Die.
The next word IGWT, is GOD. on the 1972 doubled die, the doubled die is evident in several areas. First and foremost, look how wide the letters look. Then look at the G. Focus on middle part of the G is. Look how much wider that is. if you look closely to the left (west) you can see where both G’s were slightly off axis when they were impressed into the working die.
Although this coin looks “mushy” its pretty evident it looks like a 1972 doubled die. Let’s look at the “OD” in GOD.
I will admit, the word GOD in IGWT was the less than perfect example. BUT, part of attributing coins is learning the pro’s and con’s as well as logically thinking out what you are seeing. Research is everything, so trust the more senor coin based websites over forums.
The word WE within IGWT shows some classic signs of doubling. The doubling continues to show the weaker impression to the left (west) and the “WE” shows some classic cookie cutter style lines.
Another major pick up point (PUP) or marker for the true 1972 Doubled Dies over the 1972 master hub doubling is the word TRUST within IGWT. When you see the “T’s” here, you may chuckle just a bit. Again, these “T’s” would look normal and flat and not off, IF they were not a doubled die. Look how wide that “T” is, along with the cookie cutter style line on the leg of the “T”. Both legs of the “R” show some doubling as well. Again the weaker doubling is to the west.
The last part of IGWT is the UST of TRUST. The “U” is almost clownish. The bottom part of the S shows two “S’s” . The leg of the last “T” is super wide with another classic cookie cutter style line:
Now the date of this 1972 doubled die. The date shows some doubling on the “972” with the “7” showing a slight cookie cutter line across the top of the horizontal part of the “7”. There is a cookie cutter style line through the curl of the nine. if it wasn’t for the stain on the “9”, within the curl of the “9” you would see to “nub” style endings on the end of that curl for the “9”.
So, there you have a walk around a true 1972 doubled die. If you feel a bit ambitious, you may want to try your luck at attributing this coin down to a specific type of DDO on http://varietyvista.com. (HINT: Its not DDO-001, DDO-002 nor is it DDO-004).
Other decent highly respected websites for information on doubled dies are:
This post in not yet complete. I am currently attempting to find the best example of a 1972 doubled die and a master hub doubling example. So please bear with me as I adventure out to locate several of these coins.
Additional posts about die variety coins can be found here !
This quest is a work in progress. Should we have a major update to this story, we will add a post on this https://MintErrors.org website.
Keep an eye on our STORE area on this website as well at https://TheCoinStore.org
