GET TO KNOW THE VALUABLE MINTING MISTAKES THAT COULD BE HIDING IN YOUR POCKET CHANGE
By Steve Lansdale
For some collectors, items with manufacturing errors are to be disregarded. After all, many in the collectibles world seek out only the highest grades and fewest blemishes possible. But for other collectors, one man’s error is another man’s treasure, be it a baseball card featuring the wrong player’s photo, an action figure placed in the wrong packaging or a banknote with one denomination printed on the front and another on the back. One of the most prevalent varieties of error collector is the error coin collector, for whom anomalies of the coining process top all other numismatic pursuits.
This 1920 Lincoln Cent, available in Heritage’s August 13-18 ANA US Coins Signature® Auction, was struck on a silver dime blank.
Why Collectors Seek Out Error Coins
“Error coins draw large numbers of passionate collectors for a number of reasons,” says Zeke Wischer, Chief Numismatic Cataloger at Heritage Auctions. “First of all, they’re generally very scarce. Even if there are multiple examples of a certain type of error known for a specific issue or series, compare that total to the number of error-free examples that exist for the same issue, and it really highlights just how rare many of them are. Another main reason for their appeal is that errors often can be visually dramatic. If a coin has a whole portrait double-struck on the obverse, or the design is struck dramatically off-center, it immediately heightens its appeal. The more visually spectacular an error is, the more collectors will strive to acquire it.”
A third reason that error coins are so popular, Wischer says, is that they can shine a spotlight on the depth of a collector’s knowledge of how coins are made in the first place. “Many of the people who collect coins don’t just collect them because of their aesthetic beauty, or for a sense of accomplishment at having completed a difficult set,” Wischer says. “Many collectors have a solid understanding of not just the history of coins, but also the process through which they have been made at different points in history. Error coins, in their many forms across time, can tell the story of how coin making has evolved into the modern era. So, when someone acquires a coin that has a portrait that looks like it is sliding off the side of the coin, it can change the coin from something that is simply enjoyable to look at into something that fulfills the years invested in studying the way in which that error coin came into existence. A collection of error coins, then, is a testament to a collector’s expertise just as much as a visually dramatic display or an accomplishment of rare acquisitions.”
This 2000-D Sacagawea Dollar, available in Heritage’s August 13-18 ANA US Coins Signature® Auction, was muled with a South Carolina quarter reverse.
Categories of Error Coins
There are as many kinds of errors as there are variables in the coin-making process. Error experts Fred Weinberg, Nicholas P. Brown and David J. Camire, who co-authored the book 100 Greatest U.S. Error Coins, listed four factors when determining a value for error coins: the “wow” factor, the rarity of the error, the condition and the popularity of the series. Error coins usually can be broken down into one of three categories:
- Planchet errors, in which something goes wrong with the preparation of the planchets, or “blanks,” used to make coins; examples include coins that are the wrong shape, appear to have a piece missing, are struck on the wrong kind of planchet or even left entirely blank.
- Die errors, which include anything involved in the dies that impart the lettering, numbers and images on the surface of a coin; die errors include doubling of design elements or mismatching two dies.
- Strike errors, which involve imperfections caused by miscues within the minting process, examples of which are misaligned or off-center strikes, double strikes and die caps.
This dramatically double-struck 1794 S-28 Head of 1794 Cent is one of the centerpiece offerings in Heritage’s August 13-18 ANA US Coins Signature® Auction.
Popular Error Coins
One of the most sought-after error coins is the double strike, which is exactly what it sounds like: a coin that has two or more images because the planchet was pressed at least twice. A spectacular example of a double strike can be found in Heritage’s August 13-18 ANA US Coins Signature® Auction, in the form of a double-struck 1794 S-28 Head of 1794 Cent. Graded MS66 Brown by NGC, this piece is one of four S-28 cents that Del Bland grades MS60, and those four are tied for the finest examples of the S-28 die pair. Bill Noyes grades the piece MS62 and the finest known example. The double strike also trumps its census position as one of the four finest existing S-28 cents. According to Weinberg, “The right side strike was first, and off center, and then it was struck again, also off center. It is a superb mint error, especially in that degree of preservation. It must have been put aside immediately by someone who either found it fascinating, or recognized, even then, its significance.”
This 1979-D 10C Roosevelt Dime with a 30% clipped planchet sold in a July 2021 Heritage auction.
Another popular error coin is the clipped planchet, which can appear in a variety of ways. Consider the case of the 1979-D Roosevelt Dime with a 30% clipped planchet that Heritage sold in 2021. Because of a misfeed or a miscut during the process of punching planchets out of a strip of coining metal, a planchet was made that did not form a complete circle. The result was a coin with a piece missing. Try to spend it at a store, and chances are the cashier will raise an eyebrow, but in the hands of the right collector – and based on the rarity, condition and popularity of the series – such a coin can represent treasure found.
This 2000-P Sacagawea Dollar/Statehood Quarter Mule, one of only 18 examples known, realized $102,000 in a September 2019 Heritage auction.
Among the rarest and most popular error coins are mules, coins struck with dies that were not intended to be used in combination with each other. Just as the farm animal that shares the same name is a hybrid between a donkey and a horse, a mule coin is similarly mixed and matched. One eye-catching example is this 2000-P Sacagawea Dollar/Washington Statehood Quarter Mule that sold at Heritage in 2019 and features a Washington quarter obverse mated with a Sacagawea dollar reverse. About 18 examples of the 2000-P Sacagawea Dollar/Statehood Quarter mule are known, and the coins have fascinated collectors for a couple of decades. Examples are known from three different die pairs, suggesting that the mistake that created the mule occurred on more than one occasion, or that Mint employees re-created the blunder on a couple of presses after the first discovery was made public.
STEVE LANSDALE is a staff writer at Intelligent Collector.