Lot 159
1955. Doubled die obverse. NGC graded MS-65 Red. A beautiful red coin. A highly sought-after variety and truly tough to see in gem grades. Housed in an Old Style Holder. Full original mint coppery red brilliance, fiery, including a few glints here and there of golden whispers, as coin that is just about as pristine as we have seen on any specimen in recent times. We all understand how rare coins like this are, having been pivotal in the market for years and year, going on sixty years now. Probably not more than a few other equivalent pieces are available today. Many that are "brilliant" no longer have their original sheen and vibrancy intact. This one is completely original.
A shortage of circulating Cents during the summer of 1955 set the stage for the creation of this curious error, perhaps the most celebrated error in all of U.S. numismatics. The increased need for Cents this year obliged the Philadelphia Mint to speed its production plan and, in the same way, to cut its quality inspection. It came about, then, that an obverse die that had unintentionally rotated between blows from the working hub slipped past the inspectors and ended up in the press. Paired with a correctly made reverse die, this obverse struck between 20,000 and 24,000 Doubled Die Cents between midnight and 8 o'clock in the morning one day during the summer of 1955. The error was not revealed until after these coins had been included with other properly produced 1955 Cents. Since he did not want to destroy 10 million Cents in order to stop the Doubled Die examples from leaving the Mint, Chief Coiner Sydney C. Engel allowed them to pass. The first examples were found by the public in Massachusetts late in 1955, and the error became popular within a few years. While readily available in the EF-AU grades, the 1955/55 Doubled Die is truly rare at the finer levels of Mint State with full mint red preservation, as the Census indicates: Pop 3; 1 finer in 66.
Estimated Value $25,000-UP.
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| Realized $25,850 |
