With his eagle eyes, Florida collector Clark Davis found 14 2022-P Wilma Mankiller quarter dollars in the American Women series exhibiting a progressive retained cud on the George Washington obverse.

Clark is a Young Numismatist all of 10 years of age.

A retained cud occurs when a portion of the die face adjacent to the rim breaks off but is held in position. A raised area of design features may appear in that area on the struck coin.

A retained cud becomes a full cud if the broken portion of the die falls away, creating a larger void in the die into which metal flows during striking, resulting in a blob-like, featureless raised area of metal on the coins the die strikes.

Examples of Mankiller quarter dollars with retained cud errors similar to that found by Clark Davis are being sold on eBay for $300 each, or more, according to numismatist Mike Diamond.

Clark’s father, Ben Davis, a collector himself who introduced Clark and his siblings to the hobby, provided Coin World with images of the first 13 errors Clark discovered while searching through 40-coin, paper-wrapped rolls of coins obtained from a local bank.

Ben Davis followed up with images of a 14th example Clark found within additional rolls obtained from the same bank.

Coin World first sent images of the 14th coin to Mike Diamond, who writes the weekly “Collectors’ Clearinghouse” column in Coin World for his assessment. After receiving Diamond’s evaluation, images from the first of the first 13 errors were sent for Diamond’s examination.

On the 14th coin, Diamond explained, “Quite a few planchets were struck by this pair of fractured dies. The earlier stages don’t show the die crack on the reverse.

“The obverse displays a retained cud (retained corner die break) of the anvil die. A piece of the die broke off and sank down below the plane of the die face. The fragment was trapped between the intact remainder of the die neck and the collar.

“The reverse shows a bi-level (stepped) die crack with a remarkable degree of vertical displacement. This would be evidence of surface cracking and significant subsurface plastic deformation.

“It’s analogous to what happens when you press too hard on a chocolate-covered ice cream pop. The shell of chocolate cracks and sinks into the softer ice cream beneath.”

For his examination of the first error quarter dollar Clark located, Diamond said, “Lucky collector. These coins have been selling on eBay for more than $300. These images represent the earliest die stage I’ve seen. The early stages seem to have been struck through grease or maybe they were weakly struck.

“It’s hard to say which without a shot of the edge. The well-struck area within the retained cud suggests it’s grease, since retained cuds are often less well struck than the surrounding area.”

Clark Davis, who is a frequent contributor to the American Numismatic Association’s YN Blog, has not yet decided what he plans to do with all of the Mankiller quarter dollar errors he discovered.

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