Opinions on the mythical 1979-P Wide-Rim SBA $1 hoard?

[pendragon1998]

You've all heard the rumors (maybe) that the government actually minted the wide-rim 1979-P SBA $1's in numbers approaching an estimated 160,750,000 out of 360,222,000 P-minted dollars that year. Possibly the best SBA site out there holds this figure to be true and bases it on a mint source. Supposedly, the coins were reserved in Reserve vaults until they were needed.

 

And yet in 1999, the government minted more SBA dollars to make up for their dwindling supply in the marketplace. With the Presidential Dollar program, SBA's are going to be removed from circulation by the Mint, I hear.

 

Seems to me that if the 160M coins were there, they'd have been released into circulation before the Mint spent the dough to mint all those 1999 dollars. Even if they're still there, now it appears they'd be destined for the melting block rather than the auction block.

 

So, does it seem to y'all that what wide-rims are out there are all we've got to collect, period? Were those 160M coins ever really minted? If so, where did they go? Was is a secret government conspiracy? Think prices will shoot up in years to come? Why isn't there a Men in Black emoticon when you need one?

 

[astrostu]

I'm not sure I buy your conspiracy theory, but I do know that out of the dozens of 1979 P SBAs that I have, only ONE of them is a wide-rim.

[cladking]

It seems strange that the sources can miss this by so much but there's no longer any doubt that they missed it. It's possible that it all came from a single individual and it was intentional misdirection but, more likely, it was just mistaken. About 3% of these are wide rims. Gems are very tough and choice coins can even be elusive. This does not appear in the regular mint sets and there was no dollar in the regular souvenir sets. There was a special souvenir set with only the three different SBA's and some of these contain the wide rim. 2 to 5% of these 3-pc sets have it.

[gmarguli]

There is no way whatsoever that 45% of the 1979-P SBA $ are wide rims. I've been searching for this coin for a LONG time - long before most people knew it existed. I've found very few. I'd estimate that 5% MAX are wide rim and even that figure may be very high. I've had the..um..pleasure of searching thru bags and countless rolls and found very few. I've only seen one full roll of them - which I purchased.

 

As for 643 wide border dies, perhaps that also includes those dated 1980 that were produced in 1979?

[physics-fan3.14]

I had the pleasure of sorting through my dad's accumulated dollar coins a couple of years ago. Everytime he went to the bank to cash his paycheck, he would get a few dollars and throw them in a large jar. There were SBAs and SACs, totalling around $1200, with the SBA's forming about 75%. I really was only searching for wide rim vs. narrow rim 1979s. Well, out of that whole jar of SBAs, guess how many wide rims I found? One. Just one. So, either someone has hidden them all away, or they don't exist.

[Robbie-migration]

I just got a 1979 P Wide Rim back from NGC graded @ MS 66 today.

[Beijim]

I just got a 1979 P Wide Rim back from NGC graded @ MS 66 today.

Congrats - a good result! That's a relatively tough coin in MS67.

 

Beijim

[pendragon1998]

Possibly the best SBA site out there holds this figure to be true and bases it on a mint source.

 

I recently got a pm from Mike over at smalldollars.com, the owner of the site I linked to. He brought up the point that his website originally stated that the mintage number for wide-rims is an estimate. After reading this post, he has edited that page's content to make that estimation more clear. I should also say that I played a bit fast and loose with my grammar when I said "holds this figure to be true" rather than mentioning that Mike's site lists it as an estimate. Sorry about any confusion that may have caused.

 

I just got back from vacation, so sorry I didn't make this point sooner.

 

I still think smalldollars.com is the best SBA site out there (and Mike's a pretty nice fellow too!)