A doubled die happens during the pressing process when the die itself is created and not during the strike of the coin. The doubled secondary will be the same height and width of the design and will not look flat like.
Values for doubled dies are all over the place and 1955 has at least 15 different doubled die varieties with only two worth a large premium and only one is the most famous doubled die in coin collecting. So it’s not enough to say it’s a 1955 DDO; it must also be the exact variety base on the die markers to assign a value.
With that being said most doubled dies don’t add much of a premium to a coin and master die doubling is even less than that. So it is best to seek professional advice when assigning doubled die varieties and their subsequent value.
There’s 8 classes of doubled dies listed below:
Double Die Classification:
- Class I: Die being re-hubbed is rotated near the center of the die from the position it was in during the original Hubbing.
- Class II: Design features on the Die/Hub become distorted or miss-shaped during the annealing/tempering process causing the images to no longer align properly when being re-hubbed.
- Class III: When working hubs with different designs features are used to Hub a Die.
- Class IV: When a Die is moved off center in the Hubbing Press from the position it was in during the initial Hubbing.
- Class V: When a Die is pivoted around a point near the rim during the rehubbing process.
- Class VI: When a Hub is overused and the design features become thickened or flattened creating thick design features on the Working Dies.
- Class VII: When a Die being Hubbed is impressed with a normal hub and a then re-hubbed using a hub that has had its features changed or removed
- Class VIII: When the top of a Die being Hubbed is not parallel to that of the Hub.
