The goal of many numismatists is to find the very best coin. Their goal is to find the best luster, condition and overall appearance. But there is a special breed of collectors who focus on the total opposite. Error coin collectors search for the most unusual coins that are produced from the mint. One of the biggest reasons that error coins appeal to people is the wide array of forms they take on. Error coins have been around as long as the mint has been producing coins. The first US coins were made using a Screw Press. The Screw Press was invented around the 1600's. The Press usually required 10 to 12 men turning two huge arms. This was the way coins were made up until the early 1800's. At this time, the Industrial Revolution was sweeping the world. The first US coins were produced from the Steam Press in 1836. Due to the technology of the day, errors such as off-center strikes, die doubling, and over dates were common and nowadays command a very high premium.
The United States Mint produces billions of coins a year and the odds of producing perfect coins is impossible. As technology has gotten more advanced, the Mint has been able to control many "would be" errors with various quality checks and sorting stages. Error coins can come in many different shapes and sizes. The smallest kinds of errors happen on the die itself. These errors range from Die Cracks, Cuds and Die Doubling. These often minimal errors have the best chance of being found by you in your change. The biggest types of errors are off-center struck coins, capped die coins and coins with a Brockage error. Coins with major errors very rarely pass the Mints quality control tests and are very hard to come by.
All coins are struck by Dies, which are extremely hard pieces of steel, which have an incused (backwards) image of the coin embedded on it. Dies are struck two times to insure a strong strike to the coins. In the case of a Double Die, during the process of making the die, the second strike to the die is not aligned with the first. This results in slightly double feature letters and numbers on the coin. Often only the lettering and date will be doubled. In 1955, around 40,000 Lincoln Wheat cents were struck with a highly doubled die. The result was a Lincoln Wheat cent with date and motto highly doubled. Before any Mint official spotted the error, about 25,000 double die cents were already mixed with other "no error" cents. Instead of destroying all of the cents the mixed batch of Lincoln Wheat cents were released. The Mint assumed that the error would not be noticed. On the famous 1955 Double Die Lincoln cent, the motto "In God We Trust", "LIBERTY", and the date are all double struck. The 1955 Double Die Lincoln cents were first discovered in New York. As news of the error spread, the value of the coin increased. Today, the 1955 Double Die Lincoln cent is the most famous error in the numismatic world. It's so popular that there was even a movie made based around the error! An example of the 1955 Double Die Lincoln cent is shown. Notice the extremely doubled date, and mottos.
Undoubtedly, the most popular and common error is off-center struck coin. This happens when a blank lands in the collar improperly. When this occurs only part of the blank is between the upper and lower dies. When the dies strike the blank only part of the blank is struck with a design. Off-center struck coins are most commonly found on one cent coins. An off-center struck coin with a date is far more valuable than one without. The bigger the off-center strike is, the rarer it is. The Susan B. Anthony shown is an example of an off-center struck coin.
Another very popular type of error coin is a wrong planchet error. These error coins are very dramatic and hard to come by. But they are very cool. Wrong planchet errors occur when a blank from one denomination is accidentally fed into a press for another denomination. These are errors that are usually caused by human error. For example, a Mint worker may feed cent planchets into a machine that is supposed to be producing nickels. What comes out will be a cent planchet with the design of a nickel. The wrong planchet coin will be the equivalent size and weight to the cent. The 1934 Buffalo nickel shown is an example of a wrong planchet error. It was struck on a planchet intended for a cent. As you can see, some of the devices are cut off due to the smaller planchet.
Agreeably, the rarest kind of coin error to date is known as a Double Denomination Mule. The term Mule means "the coin that results from the inappropriate combination of two different dies". The most famous Mule error coin to have come from the United States Mint is the Sacagawea/Washington State quarter mule. In 2000, the United States Mint confirmed this coin to be a true error. Supposedly, a US Mint official replaced a cracked obverse Sacagawea coin die, with a Washington State Quarter die. This resulted in a Sacagawea golden dollar, with the obverse of the Washington State Quarter and the reverse of a normal Sacagawea dollar. To date there are 15 known and the highest grade one (PCGS MS-65) was found in a roll!
The Washington State quarter/Sacagawea Dollar mule shown is one of the finest known.
The world of error collecting will continue to grow as long as the Mint is producing coins. Collecting error coins is a modern day treasure hunt! Error coins can be found in circulation, from the bank or straight from the Mint! Always check your change. Many Cuds and Die Cracks are found this way! There are so many different error coins that have been made by the Mint, many more than have been described here. Remember error coins are like snowflakes, no two are the same.
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