Are the 2020-P ASE's physically distinguishable from the regular West Point minted bullion coins?
dxpian
Posts: 7 ✭
First of all, I'm not here to comment on the recent hype of the 2020-P American Silver Eagle emergency issue whether or not it's worth the investment. Just wanted to share a recent finding that's rather interesting. The consensus currently is that there's no way to tell them apart from the regular WP minted bullion coins, because there are no mint marks on the 2020-P coins minted at the Philadelphia mint. The only way to make a distinction is through the monster boxes sent to the grading companies, and you would have to trust the slabs they put on them. But wait, is it really the case though?
I actually believe there’s a way to physically distinguish those emergency production coins. Might be something to do with the die setting at the Philadelphia mint, but the obverse and reverse are not perfectly straight/aligned. For the Philadelphia minted coins, and I’ve tried multiple of them, if you run a ruler along the horizontal line above the date 2020 on the obverse and flip it over vertically, the eagle is not at a perfect “12 o’clock” position perpendicular to the ruler. It is tilted slightly to the left at a very noticeable, almost 10 to 15 degree angle. This does not happen to the regular 2020 bullion ASE’s or the 2020-W proofs minted at West Point. Not sure if my sample size is sufficient to draw this conclusion, so would highly appreciate everyone's thoughts and observations.
Comments
They would have to all be struck off the same set of dies for this to hold up as a definitive diagnostic for the entire series. But, it might be an identifiable die pairing.
@jmlanzaf - thanks for your comment. Do you by any chance know how often they change out the dies? Given they only produced this at the Philadelphia mint for 2 weeks, maybe that was the only die pairing for the entire series? Appreciate further thoughts
Not only would all Philly coins need to have this die alignment, but none of the W coins would be able to have it in order for this condition to be a diagnostic.
But good job at identifying it.
Interesting detective work! Thanks for posting it. I'm going to bookmark the discussion.
How much trouble would it be for the press operator to reposition whichever die is responsible for the rotated reverse outcome?
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@JBK - You raise an excellent point. I’m in process of testing the control sample of WP minted 2020 eagles, including the proofs. So far, My sample size is 15 and everything is perpendicular. On the other hand, my sample size for the 2020-P emergency issue has only been 6, although purchased from multiple sources. I am an auditor and I don’t believe in any sample sizes under 25. That’s why everyone’s inputs will be highly valuable. Anyways, back to the point you raised, my take is, if the production wasn’t run in a rush, die alignment should have been one of the first things they ensure. Chances are, we probably won’t find a WP mint that’s misaligned, at least not to that degree.
If there were a known die characteristic the top grading companies would be using it to certify mint location instead of requiring sealed boxes to be submitted with unique inventory numbers on the boxes. To strike the required 15 million plus ASEs each year the West Point has to have at hundreds if not thousands of sets of dies on hand. Most likely some of these WP dies were sent to Philly.
obverse/reverse alignment is a result of the placement of both dies in the press, or slight rotation of the fixed die during the press run. With 240,000 "emergency" ASEs reported (by the mint) to have been struck at Philly chances are that many sets of dies (requiring change out and new alignment) were used for the entire Philly mintage. Same holds true for the mintage struck at WP. Alignment issues on a limited number of coins at Philly is not proof of a Philly coin unless one can prove there were no similar alignment issues with the other 15 million coins struck in WP.
My bet is WP dies were used in Philly and there will be no die marker variety(ies) that can be attributed to a Philly strike. There just was not enough time to make different dies for the Philly strikes.
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@derryb - fully agree. That’s why I think this theory needs more testing. However, not sure how frequently dies can be misaligned to this magnitude, but my experience might be limited. Also depends on how many dies are involved in production as well, could have die variations there from an alignment perspective.
Interesting anomaly and worth pursuing.... Though I would doubt it will hold up for an entire run of 240K. And of course, checking the W coins for a similar misalignment is necessary, as you noted. Good luck with your investigation and an interesting subject. Cheers, RickO
Interesting reading, thank you all for sharing !!!
@dxpian . Sorry for the delay. ( First I had to find a Ruler!)
I conducted the test with a Tape Measure and it seems to bear out the observation. I tried it on 10 coins against one of my PCGS Certified coins and to my untrained and inexperienced eye it seems the Eagle is slightly tilted but to the right not the left. Perhaps I am not doing this right as I am very new to all of this. It also might have something to do with the PCGS Coin being in it's case? Again.. I don't have enough experience to say for sure. Sorry if that's not very much help...
Rotation on on Philly struck coin and no rotation on 10 WP coins is not sufficient proof to be a marker for Philly struck coins. Very likely that one could find a Philly coin with no rotation and 10 WP coins with slight rotation. Rotation is something that can happen with any pair of dies at any strike location. What you need is a specific die marker for Philly, not an alignment issue with two separate dies. I don't think it exists, because I believe WP dies were sent to Philly for the Philly ASEs.
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I guess its irrelevant unless PCGS, NGC and/or ICG accepted the alignment issue, correct? Still, interesting theory and I was glad to make the comparison as asked..
if anyone's interested
also commenting to say I should have my emergency issue P ASEs in hand within a week and will let you know what I see using your method - might be easier to see in a slab; if obv is straight up and down and reverse is tilted ccw 10-15°]
I don’t know if it is distinguishable from the regular issue SAE, or not. But, here is the obverse and reverse of my emergency issue SAE. What do you think?
thx for sharing photos @CoinHoarder! I dunno, @dxpian - these look pretty aligned - can you share some photos of yours where you're seeing this phenomenon?
You realize that dxpian only has 7 posts and has not been active since August right?
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Mine appears to have the reverse slightly tilted to the right.
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care to share photos, @MICHAELDIXON?
This is a long shot to be sure, but has anyone thought to compare the reed count on examples from both mints? Maybe there is a difference.
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