I am not a dedicated error collector, but the 55 DD cent was a childhood dream coin of mine so I now own the specimen below and I like to fully understand what I am looking at.... As I understand it, the 55 remained in the chamber for two strikes, slightly rotating between strikes. This would explain why the doubling effect is less dramatic the closer to the center of the coin... What I am unable to resolve is why I do not detect any doubling of Mr. Lincolns portrait at all. Am I misunderstanding how this famous coin was created?
That's totally incorrect It's one strike with a die that was doubled during the hubbing process hence Doubled Die. Doubled Die varieties are NEVER double struck/struck twice. I read somewhere why the bust does not look Doubled. I will try to find the article.
I’m so glad Ed explained it for you. I’m not doing good and that would be a real struggle for me to explain right now. He gave a simple but wonderful explanation. You have a beautiful example of the 1955 Doubled Die.
I read the above article and found it very interesting. The problem is I'm about to show my lack of brains here. I don't really understand the relationship between the hub and the die. I can now explain a doubled die, but still not clear exactly how it happens. I would really appreciate some help here.
I seem to recall an article that the die in those years had the central items, Lincoln and wheat transferred by a central image "master die", so they were accurate and then a second "master die " with the current year, etc. " on it The combination was thren used to produce the working dies. I recall the article showed the 2 dies.... But this was back in the later 50s-early 60s, so could be wrong Jim
A hub looks like the finished coin. It is used to sink the design features into the working die, which is to strike coins. It takes three strikes to sink the design devices into the working. Each of those strikes must be in perfect alignment. One of them isn’t there will be some doubling. For the 1955 doubled die cent, the hub was rotated slightly. Therefore everything was doubled. As you move toward the center of the coin, there is less doubling. There are other types of doubled die coins, but this is enough for now.
Cousins to the doubled die coins are the 1942 over 1 P and D dimes. During die sinking process, the first hub strikes on the working dies were dated “1941”. One of subsequent strikes, probably the third and last one, a “1942” dated hub was used.
The date is on the master tool that is used to make the die that strikes the coins. There were different dates on the master tools that were used to make the dies.