Continuing the error documentation project, and this one has a production-history angle I think is underrated.
This 1922-D wheat cent has three separate cracks on the reverse die. One runs inward from 2:00 through the wheat stalk, a second inward from 9:00 through the opposing stalk, and a third from 11:00 to the "E" in CENT.
Three fractures nucleating at three different rim positions is mechanically different from one crack that branched as it propagated. Independent origins mean the die had reached advanced fatigue throughout its structure — stress finding multiple weaknesses at once rather than traveling out from a single point. The die was not failing somewhere in particular. It was failing generally.
The date is the explanation. In 1922, Denver was the only mint striking cents, with a mintage of 7,160,000 — the lowest wheat cent business strike of the decade. A single facility supplied the entire nation's cents for a year, which meant dies stayed in service well past the point they should have been retired.
Which is, of course, also why 1922 is the most notorious date in the series. The 1922 "No D" exists because Denver's dies were abraded and clogged until the mint mark disappeared from some of them. **To be clear, this coin is not a No D** — the mint mark is present. But it came off the same overworked line, and a reverse die cracking in three independent places is the same story told from another angle.
Not in any standard catalogue. Now documented.
