This is not a
Retained Cud, as it can only be a
Retained Cud if there is something being "retained", this only happens in rare and brief instances. This is because
Retained Cuds aren't "
Cuds"... yet. Like John said, a better name for a
Retained Cud would be precud...but post (after) that rim to rim die crack finally graduates from being just a crack, into full separation (or a complete split) into a free floating piece of die. Still with me? Lol
Ok so now you got 2 separate pieces of die making coins.. aka
Retained Cud phase. This is a very short lived phase as its only a short matter of time in how long the smaller piece can stay in place, or keeps in line with the rest of the design while punching coins.. and this can vary, but once it does start to move/rotate away from its original location, its piece of the design will still be visible but will show some sort of CLEAR evidence (either being sunken down lower than the rest of the surrounding area of where it broke away from the die, or maybe it looks like the last piece of a puzzle that someone didn't put in quite right or had pushed all the way in. But as soon as that broken piece of die and it's portion of desgin cannot be seen or shows no evidence of still floating around in its spot anymore, then you have entered the
Cud phase. And we all know that this is when that missing piece of die is not coming back and leaves a nice empty void, which translate to big protruding blobs of metal on the surface of the coins it makes until a mint worker notices and replaces the die with a new one.
Cud vs
Retained Cud..
Basically I think we all can agree that we think of
Cuds as just big old blobs of metal filling in a void that was left along the rim of a damaged die face.
Retained Cud - basically before a
Cud can exsist, it had to be a
Retained Cud first. The only real way to tell the two apart is to think of it like this.
Cud and
Retained Cud are the same person (same type of error) in that they represent the same area of a die that just fully broke.. and as long as that piece is able to hang in there and float around without being destroyed or falling out, then you have a
Retained Cud.. until it gets destroyed/flys out/it wont last very long in this state for obvious reasons.. and that is why its much more rare than a
Cud, or even rim to rim die cracks, etc.. once it becomes a
Cud, it can stay a
Cud for as long as they continue to use that die (and not notice the damaged die) which could be the same day, or maybe not for several days..
But this guy is no
Retained Cud by the actual definition of a "
Retained Cud". Many people mislabel and confuse this term, and it's not uncommon to have incorrectly identified errors on websites that list these. But you do have a nice cute little reverse
Cud on that dime!