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9 March 2007



US Mint Error Keeps “In God We Trust” off Dollar Coin

In recent years, the US Mint has done a pretty good job at giving beginning numismatists something to collect. The quarter program is perhaps the most successful, replacing the customary eagle on the reverse with a design from each state (meaning there will be 50 new quarters to snatch up at the end of it). The most recent move was to create a dollar coin that Americans would actually use. The Mint has put the first president on a gold-ish colored coin. However, an error omitted the writing on the edge, making it an instant collectors item. Some error.

The Mint has produced and released 300 million of these new coins that replace the Sacajawea dollar coin that replaced the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin that replaced with Ike dollar coin. So long as the dollar bill is in circulation, Americans won’t use a dollar coin. Outside of change for public transportation, no one has seen the Sacajawea (and commuters hate the damned thing because no one else wants to accept it).

In any case, the George Washington coin was supposed to have writing all around the edge: “In God We Trust,” “E Pluribus Unum,” the date and the mint mark. No one knows how many of the 300 million went out lacking the inscription. However, the price of the new coin without the writing is selling at more than $300 a pop on eBay.

Mint errors are statistically few, but the Mint stamps out billions of coins a year. A 99.99% perfection rate still leaves millions of coins carrying errors. Double struck coins or off-center strikes happen rather a lot, wrong metals or planchets are occasionally used, and "mules" describe coins where the obverse for one coin is stamped with the reverse of another. Quality control usually catches these mistakes before they leave the Mint. Someone at the Mint blew the Washington dollar, or did they?

This kind of error creates all sorts of media stories (this one included). People who aren’t interested in the coins in their pockets beyond what they can spend them on will be looking over their change. Folks will go to the bank and ask for the Washington dollar hoping for a $300+ profit. And if they don’t get the hidden prize, they have a dollar coin they need to spend. If this wasn’t a deliberate policy of the US Mint to get the Washington dollar into wide circulation, it should have been.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.


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