1964 Lincoln Cent Date Guide

A dramatic increase in overall production this year caused 1964 cents to be some of the most available Lincoln cents in history. Thousands of rolls and bags are readily available at very modest premiums, and rolls of proof 1964 cents are plentiful at $15-$20 per roll. Like with 1963, this is a good omen for die variety hunters.

1964 marks the climax of Lincoln cent doubled die production. Over 100 different doubled dies are known. Although most of them are minor, there are quite a few that are very nice. In fact some of them are nearly visible to the naked eye. One such die is on the reverse of 1964 Philadelphia minted cents and shows very strong class 1 rotated hub doubling. Its main pick up point is in the word STATES. A large number of proof cents also show hub doubling, most of them are on the reverse as well. The vast majority of all 1964 doubled die reverse cents are class 2, distorted hub doubling, showing mainly on the outside edges of the letters in ONE CENT or the designer's initials.

Something MANY people are not aware of is that for most of the denominations, cents included, 1964 dated coins were minteed well into 1966. An official Mint report from 1966 shows that there were 3.37 billion (with a b) 1964-dated cents minted in 1964, and 2.87 billion 1964-dated cents minted in 1965. This happened because of a "date-freeze" authorized by congress to stop silver hoarding and to help control roll and bag hoarding of cents and nickels. There has never been any conclusive report stating that this confusion helped anything.

The 4 of the date on many 1964 business strike and proof cents has been the cause of controversy in that many examples show very minor doubling above the crosslet on the far right side of the digit. While these have been considered individual doubled dies in the past, it is my opinion that most of these were caused by either a doubled master die or a doubled working hub. Far too many of them exist for this anomaly to have occurred on each individual die involved. These should not, however, be confused with true doubled dies that show stronger doubling in the same area.