The Mysterious 1960 Small Date Lincoln Cent

            
There are two less commonly seen die clashes that should be mentioned as
well. The first is caused by the roof of the Memorial building being clashed
onto the obverse die in the area of the date. It is seen as a rather short
bar protruding from the front of Lincoln’s jacket and at times it does extend
into the first digit of the date.

         
The other die clash pattern is created by the lower back of Lincoln’s bust as
it passes through either the D or E of UNITED. There are just a few of these
dies that show the partial letter D on the obverse die and only one instance
where the jacket line can be seen in bay 3 of the Memorial building.

           It
is peculiar that having examined over 9000 small date 1960 Lincoln cents
from both mints, that only a few had the commonly seen  die clash of the Lincoln cents. Mostly all
the die clashes are located well away from the center on both die faces. For those
of you who are not familiar with the common Lincoln cent die clash, please
refer to the picture below.

              Now
that we have a concept of what is occurring with the die clashes, let us take
a look at a few more odd facts. Pick up any small date 1960 Lincoln cents and
the one feature that will be noted is the abundant die scratches, especially
in the areas where the clash marks can be frequently found. Presently, we
have listed 35 separate dies on MADdieclashes.com that have had clash events,
some having evidence of more than one clash event affecting that single die.
I have approximately 15 more dies to be added to the site on my desk, and I
am still searching rolls of 1960 small dates. If we look at the Memorial
Lincoln cent series, beginning with its start in the year 1959 and during any
of the next ten years, we will not find a single year with that many
different die clashes. Even in the early 1980’s, with the large amount of die
clashes found during that period that amount pales in comparison to what was
found on the 1960 small date        

              Another odd fact is that you can find coins struck with conflicting dies. A
conflicting die is one that will show clash marks from the opposing die,
while the opposing die is free of them. For example, a coin will have the
partial letters of STATES clashed under Lincoln’s bust on the obverse die but
does not show the corresponding clash mark of the lower bust line through the
word STATES. This can be explained by the removal of one or both dies after a
clash event, subsequent abrasion to remove the clash marks and then a failure
to put both back into service as a mated pair.

            The
current practice of the U. S. Mint seems to involve replacing the obverse die
after anything more than minor clash, while abrading the reverse die. But
there is no period of time where both the obverse and reverse dies were
heavily abraded and kept in service.

               The
next step is to go back and revisit the stories from the U. S. Mint
concerning the small date 1960 Lincoln cents. When the small date was first
noticed by coin collectors, the mint director, W. H. Brett, denied that any
changes had taken place. It was later that the Mint corrected that statement
and admitted that both a small date and large date 1960 Lincoln cent were in
circulation. As I had mentioned in the beginning of this article, the Mint
stated that the change was necessary to correct a problem with the small 0 in
the date chipping out. The 0 in the date was made larger, along with the 6
and 9 digit to balance the proportions of all the digits. In his 2006
column, Eric von Klinger had mentioned that I believed that
the 9 digit was actually an inverted 6 digit which was punched into the
master die. Since that time we have found that the digits in the date were
actually engraved into the master die and not applied through a punch.

          
  After looking at the 9000+ small date cents from the year 1960, I
found none with a chipped out 0 digits — the supposed problem that ceased
its production! Yes, there were a few dies with chipped out 6 digits and more
dies with chipping in the R of LIBERTY. However, that is not the area that
the Mint had stated was the problem. So, exactly what was the malfunction
with the 1960 small date Lincoln cent?

             While
we will never know exactly what did happen at the U. S. Mint  to
make it  abandon the use of the small date on the 1960 Lincoln
cent, but let us look at what we do know. The 1960 small date cent master die
was made sometime in 1959, from which was then made the various working hubs
and working dies. After the working dies were completed, the Denver mint mark
was applied to the allotted amount for service to that mint. The production
began in the beginning of the year with the Denver mint making the first of
that year’s Lincoln cent a coin press. There are two  obvious facts
that the small date Lincoln cent was odd; first, the location of the die
clash marks seen where they had never been seen before and the frequency of
the die clashes that did occur on the small date cents.

            Let’s
examine the first fact. With the majority of the die clash events being the
tilted die clash variety (the reason I say majority is that I am sure one or
two will be found with a die clash marks found in the center of the die), the
hammer die may have had a different mounting system in the coin press than
seen in previous years. This tilting of the hammer die could have been a
designed feature to lessen the impact of the dies when they did clash, which
in turn would reduce the number of the obverse dies discarded after a
clash.  Alternatively, it may have been just an unusual effect of
the way the hammer die was mounted in the coin press.

           The
second fact points to a problem in the planchet delivery system. With the
extremely large number of clash die events occurring with the small date Lincoln
cent, it did indicate there was a problem. With each clash event, the coin
press would have to be stopped, the dies examined for damage and then either
replaced or abraded to remove the clash marks. Exactly why this problem did
occur cannot be pinpointed. However, this problem may have doomed the small
date Lincoln cent. But why make another complete set of new working dies from
scratch?

          We
know that the large date and small date working hubs for 1960 were the same
physical shape. This is evident in the four working dies (3 proof dies and
one Denver mint die) that were hubbed with both a small and large working
hubs (Class III doubled dies). After the master die had completed the working
hubs and the working hubs the working dies of the small date 1960 Lincoln
cent, it may have been deemed that the master die and working hubs were too
worn to produce working dies. This would necessitate the making of a new
master die, working hubs and working dies. But why switch to the large date
version of the Lincoln cent in that same year, which duplicated the work that
had previously been accomplished on the small date Lincoln cent? Was there
some other factor that made the small date Lincoln cent uniquely different
that the previously manufactured working dies for that version of the Lincoln
cent were unusable? Again, we can only guess what that difference may have
been, but surely it was not because the digits in the date were chipping out
as the mint stated.

         Another
odd phenomenon has been observed in connection with both versions of the 1960
Lincoln cent. In the making of the master die for the year, the previous
year’s master hub (or a preceding year’s master hub) was employed to make
that new master die by abrading the last two digits (in some cases the last
three digits) of the date from that master hub. The new master die was made
and the last two digits were engraved into the newly formed die.

          However, it appears
that the small date 1960 master die was made from a previous year’s master
hub that had all design elements removed except for Lincoln’s bust. This is
also true for the large date 1960 Lincoln cent as well. If we compare the
word LIBERTY in a 1959 cent to the same word in both the 1960 small date
and large date cent, we can see obvious differences in the lettering.
Look at the picture to the right and while the word LIBERTY does appear to be
the same in all three examples, closer scrutiny reveals a difference in just
about all the letters.