1920 5c Cud At Base Of Bust?

One key way to tell would be to look at weakness of the strike on the reverse, exactly opposite of the area of the die break.

XavierOfGreen,

Weakness does not always occur opposite a Cud. It depends a lot in how deep and to some degree how wide the break is. If it's shallow it may not affect the flip side at all. If it's deep, it will. I have many Cuds with a normal flip side.

In this case it has been 16 years since I saw the coin. I would think that I took all reasonable precautions in attributing it as a Cud but 16 years is a long time to remember back and the coin is long gone.

This is why I want to see if any body else has one. If another shows up, we know it's a Cud. If none show up I'm going to continue to question myself ... I guess. The only thing that bothers me about this one is that it was cleaned. Coins that have been removed from jewelry are often cleaned.

One of the downfalls of playing "answerman" at coin shows (many show promoters offer me a free table to come), is that you don't really always get the time to shoot all the areas of the coin you might at home or at your office and you do not have enough time to take the proper notes. There is always a string of coins to examine and shoot and often a line of folks waiting to ask questions.

Below is one of many dies in my collection of defective dies. It sports a deep Cud. This one would have definitely left an area of weakness on the flip side.

LOL. You never know. Maybe I'll get see the coin again someday.

here is an other example :

http://www.cdncoin.com/product-p/20120620486.htm

this is my favorite variety (I search this error/variety since 2010 but I have found nothing )