US MINT goof creates "GODLESS DOLLARS" from AOL Money & Finance News

[comicAL]

Hi, All

 

I thought this is an interesting article on AOL about the smooth edged Washington Dollars. Love that "sound bite" Godless dollars tag!

 

AAJ

 

U.S. Mint Goof Creates 'Godless Dollars'

By JOANN LOVIGLIO

AP

PHILADELPHIA (March 7) - An unknown number of new George Washington dollar coins were mistakenly struck without their edge inscriptions, including "In God We Trust," and made it past inspectors and into circulation, the U.S. Mint said Wednesday.

 

The properly struck dollar coins, bearing the likeness of George Washington, are inscribed along the edge with "In God We Trust," "E Pluribus Unum" and the year and mint mark. They went into circulation Feb. 15.

 

The mint struck 300 million of the coins, which are golden in color and slightly larger and thicker than a quarter.

 

About half were made in Philadelphia and the rest in Denver. So far the mint has only received reports of error coins coming from Philadelphia, mint spokeswoman Becky Bailey said.

 

Bailey said it was unknown how many coins didn't have the inscriptions. Ron Guth, president of Professional Coin Grading Service, one of the world's largest coin authentication companies, said he believes that at least 50,000 error coins were put in circulation.

 

 

Coins in the News

"The first one sold for $600 before everyone knew how common they actually were," he said. "They're going for around $40 to $60 on eBay now, and they'll probably settle in the $50 range."

 

Production of the presidential dollar entails a "new, complex, high-volume manufacturing system" that the mint will adjust to eliminate any future defects, the mint said in a statement.

 

"We take this matter seriously. We also consider quality control a high priority. The agency is looking into the matter to determine a possible cause in the manufacturing process," the statement said.

 

The coin's design has already spurred e-mail conspiracy theories claiming that the religious motto was purposely omitted from the Washington dollars. That rumor may have started because the edge lettering cannot be seen in head-on photographs of the coins.

 

The Washington dollars are the first in a series of presidential coins slated to run until 2016. After Washington, the presidents to be honored on dollar coins this year will be John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.

 

Bailey said the striking of the Adams coin, expected to roll out in mid-May, will proceed as planned.

 

"We are adjusting the manufacturing process to try to eliminate the problems," she said.

[MunkyMan95]

... and how would Ron Guth know how many were put into circulation?

[gedis3]

... and how would Ron Guth know how many were put into circulation?

 

He has a special "seeing stone" that allows him to summon up random numbers for the population of new error coins and then imparts this knowledge as fact to the masses through the media...

 

...sorta like that fake-Jamaican Psychic that used to have her own 900 number, only "coinier".

 

He don't know... no one knows... the people that made the freakin' things don't even know.

 

If there are 50,000 of them, I'm guessing that there are some speculators in Florida sitting on a metric ton of them -- and will slowly trickle them out for the next 10 years as to not burst the $50 bubble that has already deflated down from $600

 

Same thing happened with the 1982 No P Dime... everyone thought they were rare as hen's teeth, them some schmoo admitted to having about 4000 of them socked away and the bottom dropped out.

[Dcoin]

Thank God they took God off.

[gedis3]

Humorous story related to this topic...

 

This morning on the 6am Local TV news, they ran a story about the missing edge lettering on the new dollars -- and they reported that 300 Million of them had been released from the mint without the edge lettering...

 

...after shooting coffee across the room in a classic spit-take, I emailed the on-air anchor person that they had the facts a little wrong and told them that a TOTAL of 300 Million had been minted, and that only an ESTIMATED 50 thousand or so are believed to have the "error" and that most had been reported in Florida from Phildelphia Mint rolls -- I also told her about the current eBay market.

 

She sent a quick response (I guess she checks her email at the newsdesk during commercial breaks...) and corrected the report the next time it aired, even updated it with what I had told them about eBay.

[cpm9ball]

I found my first "Godless" today. I have 25 bank rolls that I am going through.......9 more to go! I've also set aside 10 coins that should grade 67.

 

Chris