Variety Vista has a 2005 Lincoln Memorial Cent that has a cud/DD on the column just to the right of the Lincoln statue. I found a similar coin (see photos) and was wondering is this really a doubled die or just V.V. designation. Thanks Mike
I can’t see yours well enough to say for absolute certainty, but such “doubling” is accepted and also very common, so even if yours isn’t a match it wouldn’t at all be surprising if it is of this type.
From Wexler Website When the Mint switched to the single-squeeze hubbing process, the hub and die set-up in the hubbing press changed for the first hubbing which now would be the only hubbing. The hub is no longer locked into the top of the hubbing chamber. The die blank is placed into the well of a collar placed in the bottom of the coining chamber. The hub is also placed into the well of the collar so that the face of the hub is resting on the conical point of the top of the die blank. Since the diameter of the well in the collar has to exceed the diameter of the die blank and the hub (so that the die blank and hub can be inserted into and removed from the collar, and so that the hub can be pushed downward into the die), there is “play” in the collar well. It allows for some horizontal movement between the hub and the die when the hubbing process begins. There is even the possibility of some rotational movement. More importantly for this discussion, the hub will be tilted with respect to the die prior to the start of the hubbing since it is sitting unrestrained on point of the cone of the die blank in the collar well. Since the hub is slightly tilted at the time the hubbing begins, as it is pushed down into the collar well and into the die blank, the flat top of the hubbing chamber pushing against the flat bottom of the working hub will force the working hub into a more vertical alignment in the collar well. Since the face of the die blank is cone-shaped and the design elements on the hub are raised, there is likely to be some movement (slipping of the tip of the cone off of the centralized raised design element after a slight impression has been made), and minor doubling will occur to some part of the design at the center of the die. Because the hub is not fixed to the top of the hubbing chamber as it was in the multiple-squeeze hubbing presses, the movements resulting from the “play” in the well of the hubbing chamber seem to occur frequently producing an abundance of minor Class VIII doubled die varieties. Strong doubling shows on the left side of the lower 7th Memorial column on the reverse of the 2004 Class VIII Lincoln cent doubled die that we have listed as 2004 1¢ WDDR-027. Extra knees can be seen to the left of the normal knees and an extra leg can be seen between the lower part of the two normal legs. The amount and strength of the doubled image suggests that the hub resisted moving back into a normal vertical alignment at the start of the hubbing and snapped back into alignment as the hubbing progressed.
Worthless even more so to variety collectors is Class IX as described in Wexler and Flynn's "The authoritative reference of Lincoln Cents" 2nd ed. as " God Only Knows". Their section in the book on Die Preparation is worth the full price for someone who doesn't know the die making processes and what could go wrong. Jim
