Mint Mistakes, Errors or Careful Planning?

[moovyz]

I was recently reading the article in Coin World regarding the recent find of a Sacagawea Dollar with lettered edge like on the Presidential issue. I find it somewhat curious, and even a bit disturbing, that the article mentions several times that this error was "much anticipated", with PCGS even paying a finders fee of $2,500 for it. The anticipation began when Presidential Dollars began circulating "without" edge lettering. And the article goes on to say that they also are looking for a Sacagawea with a Presidential reverse, which PCGS will pay a $10,000 finder's fee for.

 

My understanding of the manufacturing processes at the mint seem to make the chance of this happening as remote, if not impossible, by natural accident. The edge lettering goes on after the Presidential obverse and reverse and I just can't figure out a scenario that a Sacagawea found it's way into this prodution line. I CAN SEE where an employee might sneak one in and feed it into the system. Or where mint officials or other employees intentionally "create" these errors for numerous possible reasons, such as to stimulate the hobby, to force circulation of the much hated Sacagawea, etc.

 

How can some of these things happen by error? How does a Sacagawea obverse get matched with a Presidential reverse die by mistake? How bad do you have to be at your job to match these 2 dies and manufacture coins, then have them get by all the handlers and technicians?

 

I have often wondered how many of these "errors" find their way into circulation. We all know the story of the 1913 "V" Nickel and other pattern coins and how they get circulated through dignitaries and government officials. But many of these coins should not "naturally" find their way into circulation, unless designed to do so. The 1943 copper penny, the 1944 steel cent and a few others come to mind.

 

Recently, there was another article about the Sacagawea being minted in gold for "test" purposes. The mint has said that ALL examples were destroyed. But I'd be willing to bet that one of thoses eventually finds it's way into a collector's or dealer's hands.

 

If the majority of these coins are true "mistakes" that happen to find heir way into circulation, then congrats to the lucky person(s) that found them. But if these are carefully planned errors to try to stimulate mint purchases, or worse, to line a mint employees pocket, then I find these examples very disturbing.

 

Does anyone else question these or even wonder about their "error" identification?

[physics-fan3.14]

No. Mules, like a Sac obverse and president reverse, would be highly suspicious, much like the so called pairing of sac and washington quarter that surfaced a few years ago. That was later proven to have been deliberately made. The 1913 V nickel was likewise very deliberately made.

 

But things like the 1943 copper cent, the 1944 steel cent, and the Sac with edge lettering are very simple errors. The mint uses large canvas bags to transport coins around the plant in. It is very simple for a coin, or several coins even, to get stuck in the crevices. Later it might come out in the wrong place, and voila, a seemingly impossible event occurs. This simple process also covers how a half dollar gets struck on a quarter planchet, and so on. These are not deliberate, and I am sure the mint tries everything they can to catch them all. In fact, I am sure that there are untold numbers of errors they catch that we never see. If we got all the errors they ever made, error collecting would be as mainstream as quarter collecting.

[Dcoin]

I agree with physics, there are some errors that make sense and others that seem to be improbable. This one makes sense to me, but who really knows.

[DC Dawg]

This type of mistake is nearly impossible at the Philadelphia mint because they use physically separate production lines to mint the Sac dollars and the Presidential Dollars. The production line that mints the Sac dollars does not have the edge letting machine installed. It also has fewer coin presses.

 

I do not know how Denver is configured since I have never visited the facilities there. According to unconfirmed reports, the production facility in Denver is not as big as Philadelphia and that the Sacagawea Dollars have to struck on the same presses used for the Presidential dollars. It is possible a coin "got stuck" in the conveyor.

 

After the coins are stuck, the coins are dropped to the bottom of the press and gravity leads the coin out to a conveyor about a foot from the ground. On the dollar production lines, the conveyor leads "up" to a bin that feeds the edge lettering machine. According to my source, when the Denver mint strikes Sacagawea dollars, the conveyor does not bring the coins to the top of the edge lettering press and sends them to the collection bin at the end of the line.

 

After striking Sacagawea dollars, the operators are supposed to run the system without the presses attempting to strike coins in order to ensure no coins are "stuck" in the system. Operators are supposed to inspect the systems for partially or other mis-struck coins. There are a lot of moving parts to deal with. There are also a lot of (proverbial) nooks and crannies where coins can hide.

 

My contact--who is in a position to know--speculates that the coin was stuck somewhere in one of the presses. The operators missed the coin during inspection and during the testing of the striking of Presidential Dollars, a Sacagawea dollar dropped into the line, was struck by the edge lettering press, and dropped into the bin at the end. When the inspector went to check the bin for to ensure the strikes are within specification, it is possible that the inspector saw the Sacagawea Dollar and thought it was a leftover from the previous batch. He tossed it into bin with the rest of the Sacagawea Dollars and went on with his work.

 

This is not the official story from the Mint but the person I spoke with was in the position to know more about this than I do. That contact said that the likelihood of this scenario occurring was about 85-percent (that person's assessment). We may never know the truth, but it sounds plausible!

 

BTW: For all of you conspiracy theorists, the Mint just does not do things like this on purpose. They make mistakes and sometimes labor issues can effect the quality of the coins (see the 2004 Westward Journey Nickels when there was an issue of overtime staffing during their production). But when someone within the Mint does "something," they have other motivation (see the 1913 Liberty Head Nickels and the 1933 Saint-Gaudens Double Eagles).

 

That's my story and I'm sticking to it!!

 

Scott

[cpm9ball]

Scott, there is one other problem involving labor that you neglected to mention. Some people just don't give a d@amn about the job they get paid to do. The paycheck is the only thing that is important to them. The "whatever" attitude is becoming more and more prevalent and quality and efficiency are declining.

 

Chris

[CHABSENTIA]

In todays issue of Coin World there is an article about the 1971 Ike proof dollar.It seems that the Reverse was struck with a Type 2 Die when it was supposed to be struck with a Type 1. Maybe it is the reverse but I am not that familar with the Ikes.

 

They brought in an expert. I believe his name is Delaney.He has three different scenarios of how this happened and based on his most likely scenario and the production he thinks there could be as many as 12,000 out there.He gives thwo others but doesn't think they happened.

 

He believes that the mosat likely one is that an Employee had to finish a Production run and it was the last one and that he had to have another die and just grabbed the one that was similar.

[moovyz]

In todays issue of Coin World there is an article about the 1971 Ike proof dollar.It seems that the Reverse was struck with a Type 2 Die when it was supposed to be struck with a Type 1. Maybe it is the reverse but I am not that familar with the Ikes.

 

They brought in an expert. I believe his name is Delaney.He has three different scenarios of how this happened and based on his most likely scenario and the production he thinks there could be as many as 12,000 out there.He gives thwo others but doesn't think they happened.

 

He believes that the mosat likely one is that an Employee had to finish a Production run and it was the last one and that he had to have another die and just grabbed the one that was similar.

 

 

The situation you refer to seems logical, but a Type 1 or Type 2 swap is one that could easily be overlooked.

 

 

But I picture myself as a mint employee, perhaps even a newbie. Someone tells me to get a new reverse die for a Presidential dollar and I grab one for a Sac. There are too many things wrong with this selection for it to go un-noticed by me, even as a newbie (I must have some chart or something I have to reconcile with) or by the guy who told me to get it.

 

 

And even if we both don't catch the mistake, I just don't see how the guy in charge of "Quality Control" looks into this huge bin of coins, sees 6,000 obverses with presidents, and 6,000 reverses of Sacagaweas staring up at him and he doesn't see it?

 

 

Now, they haven't found even 1 yet, but if this mistakes is made, I don't see how one gets out of the plant accidentally. I DO SEE a mint employee putting one in his pocket and getting his bowling buddy to sell it somewhere.

[CHABSENTIA]

They have found two of them and ICG graded them both.. I forget the exact three scenarios and I may not be exactly right on the scenario or which type as I am not familar with the Ikes.

 

I do have a 1971 Proof set and I have never checked it.I just glanced at the article and it was talking about clad and silver etc and type 1 and type 2 and really didn't understand it all

 

Due to the most likely scenario this Delaney estimated that there could be 12,000.

 

The article also commented about the fact that it took 33 years to find them as it was suspected in 2004