But the master hub was used then for several years. Thus the last two digits were added. Remember the weakness of the 1946 cent dies? The 46 was added weakly. The rest of the date was strong. I'm not sure what year they stopped doing this. But at that time they were creating the master hub that way. So issues from the previous years like the notch on the B on Liberty and the W on WE continued several years.
Quote: 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.
We can also see similar differences in the motto IN GOD WE TRUST pictured below from the two dates and the large and small date 1960 cent.
Again, we must ask, why did the mint go to the trouble of making a new master die without LIBERTY and IN GOD WE TRUST only to have those two design elements engraved into that new master die? We can see that the motto had not yet migrated to the edge of the die for the positioning of LIBERTY and IN GOD WE TRUST appear the same for 1959, 1960 small date and 1960 large date. It has been noted by both James Wiles and me that the 1960 large date master hub was used without change up until the year of change in 1969. In 1968, the master hub from its continuous use to make master dies had spread Lincoln's bust outward to a point that the motto had merged with the rim. But that does not explain the mint's actions in 1960 and still leaves us wanting a better understanding of just what went on at the mint in that year. Could this have been a situation similar to what the mint experienced with the web note [1]?
Posted 05/09/2018 09:44 am
with Crazy. That LMC has lived a rough and tumble life.
