The 1955 Doubled Die Cent And A Killer Hurricane

Thought this was a pretty cool little story in the latest CoinValues mag that I thought I would share with the forum.

"A killer hurricane played a role in the release of the famous 1955 Lincoln, Doubled Die cent.

The famous, and valuable, 1955 Double Die cent was struck from an obverse die (the heads side) that bears strongly doubled images of the date, LIBERTY and IN GOD WE TRUST. The doubling is the result of a mishap in the manufacture of the die. All coins struck from this "doubled die" bear identical doubling.

Amazingly, Mint officials inspecting the coins during a midnight to 8 a.m. shift at the Philadelphia Mint caught the doubling on the cents before they shipped them to the Federal Reserve Bank. Fortunately for collectors, because there was a shortage of cents caused by the recent Hurricane Diane and because the 20,000 or so doubled die cents had been mixed in with that shift's other 10 million freshly minted cents, Mint officials released the coins rather than melting an entire shift's production."

From the July 2007 CoinValues Issue