40% Silver Ike Dollar brings $26,400.

Byers

I am not the consignor.
I am not the buyer.

40% Silver Ike Dollar brings $26,400.

WOW!!

Weiss

$26K and yet vastly more interesting than the "Abe Froman Prototype" Eisenhower dollars that someone buried themselves under a quarter million dollars in January.

Or maybe Eisenhower dollars have finally awoken from their 50 year slumber and claimed the "King of the Sleeper" title they so richly deserve.

Nah. They're still hella ugly and boring.

Byers

Quite a few Ike Dollar mint errors have been setting record prices in the last year.

IkesT

@Weiss said:
$26K and yet vastly more interesting than the "Abe Froman Prototype" Eisenhower dollars that someone buried themselves under a quarter million dollars in January.

Or maybe Eisenhower dollars have finally awoken from their 50 year slumber and claimed the "King of the Sleeper" title they so richly deserve.

Nah. They're still hella ugly and boring.

Seems like you've been lost for a while, now. This is the U.S. Coins Forum. Why not go to another forum that better suits your interests?

Weiss

@IkesT said:

Seems like you've been lost for a while, now. This is the U.S. Coins Forum. Why not go to another forum that better suits your interests?

Oh god. It was you, wasn't it? You spent a quarter million dollars on an Eisenhower dollar with the slightly blurry moon. I'm so sorry.

Nine out of 10 coin dealers agree: "You can just spend that one. It's only worth a dollar."

IkesT

@Weiss I hear the Trading Cards forum is nice.

FlyingAl

Alright, let’s pull this back on topic. The question is not who spent the money, it’s how on earth did a planchet only destined for San Francisco end up at Denver? Do the mints trade planchet bins? Ex. A bin goes to San Fran with silver planchets, then fills up with clad planchets for Denver, a silver planchet stuck in the very bottom, then struck at Denver?

jt88

Mint error coins looks very interesting and promising as long term investment.

IkesT

@FlyingAl said:
Alright, let’s pull this back on topic. The question is not who spent the money, it’s how on earth did a planchet only destined for San Francisco end up at Denver? Do the mints trade planchet bins? Ex. A bin goes to San Fran with silver planchets, then fills up with clad planchets for Denver, a silver planchet stuck in the very bottom, then struck at Denver?

It is likely that some 40% silver planchets were sent to Denver by mistake via San Francisco. The San Francisco Mint (Assay Office, at the time) was known to send surplus materials to Denver.

MarkKelley

Copper-nickel clad planchets either left over or rejected for proof coinage were shipped from San Francisco to Denver for use as business strikes. A silver blank mistakenly slipped into the shipment. The same thing also happened on a few half dollars as well.

silverpop

it's called seizing a opportunity and someone did just that

pruebas

@MarkKelley said:
Copper-nickel clad planchets either left over or rejected for proof coinage were shipped from San Francisco to Denver for use as business strikes. A silver blank mistakenly slipped into the shipment. The same thing also happened on a few half dollars as well.

Everybody thinks this, but I am sceptical. Silver (and gold) is more tightly controlled than normal CuNi material. I find it hard to believe any precious metal planchet was "mistakenly" anything.

LanceNewmanOCC

@Byers said:

amazing result!

btw, i was going to post some of your stuff after you gave the green light BUT i had so much stuff open that RIGHT when i was getting ready to post, after all the digging and image opening, i realized the images i was getting ready to post were from your webpage sales archives NOT the newsletter. i was so frustrated, as i didn't ask about the website, that i just closed everything and haven't revisited the whole thing yet. one of the images was the 70?% effaced merc die(s). VERY aesthetically appealing. can't recall now what the other thing that ended up being on your site, not the newsletter (although i saw MANY candidates from JUST the one newsletter, hence why i asked). TOO many amazing items to NOT share here.

Byers

@LanceNewmanOCC

You may post here (links and/or images) from my 250 numismatic items on my ‘sold’ archive on Mike Byers if you find it interesting or related to ongoing topics. The same applies for the 1,300 articles on Mint Error News…

Raybo

@Weiss said:
$26K and yet vastly more interesting than the "Abe Froman Prototype" Eisenhower dollars that someone buried themselves under a quarter million dollars in January.

Or maybe Eisenhower dollars have finally awoken from their 50 year slumber and claimed the "King of the Sleeper" title they so richly deserve.

Nah. They're still hella ugly and boring.

Bad day Weiss?

BLUEJAYWAY

@FlyingAl said:
Alright, let’s pull this back on topic. The question is not who spent the money, it’s how on earth did a planchet only destined for San Francisco end up at Denver? Do the mints trade planchet bins? Ex. A bin goes to San Fran with silver planchets, then fills up with clad planchets for Denver, a silver planchet stuck in the very bottom, then struck at Denver?

The Shadow Knows.

ricko

Nice price for an error coin. Come yard sale season, I will look more closely at the random Ike dollars that show up.... Would be nice to find one for $5.... Cheers, RickO

davewesen

I had a 73-S brown box IKE with an interesting toning pattern. I was going to send it in, but edge looked off I weighed it and it was a nickel clad. I wished it was a 71 or 72 so off metal could be claimed.

What makes the high selling IKE interesting is that it has a D. The silver clad planchets were only used at San Francisco. How did it get to Denver? Did the planchets come from somewhere else in 4x4 totes?

Mr Lindy

These traded for 5 to 7k for a couple decades. Denver was producing shenanigan, assisted, mint sport collector market errors from 1968 thru 1976.

wondercoin

Silly price as it should have traded around price of higher graded but a but less scarce 74-D (under $9,000). Just my 2 cents.

I did buy an Ike in the sale though that you don’t see every day.

Wondercoin

wondercoin

Finest known Ty 1 variety, 1 of 15 PCGS-MS66, and nearly all (if not all) not looking like this!
Wondercoin

BuffaloIronTail

@MarkKelley said:
Copper-nickel clad planchets either left over or rejected for proof coinage were shipped from San Francisco to Denver for use as business strikes. A silver blank mistakenly slipped into the shipment. The same thing also happened on a few half dollars as well.

Sounds plausible. It's no doubt a head scratcher.

Pete

Zoins

@Weiss said:
$26K and yet vastly more interesting than the "Abe Froman Prototype" Eisenhower dollars that someone buried themselves under a quarter million dollars in January.

Or maybe Eisenhower dollars have finally awoken from their 50 year slumber and claimed the "King of the Sleeper" title they so richly deserve.

Nah. They're still hella ugly and boring.

Unique Ikes are going through the roof and I think it's super exciting to see the interest.

Some of the top ones include:

1. Prototype Ike
2. Clover Ike
3. Mated Pair Ike
4. Bronze Ike

Weiss

Look. Collect what you like.
Ikes are a nostalgic issue for most of us born at a more comfortable distance to the apocalypse. We remember being in awe at their size because they were the king of circulating coins. We might even remember the era when Presidents were actual war heroes and deserved to be recognized--in some way.

But objectively, Eisenhower dollars are one of the ugliest coin series America ever released. They were clunky. They were impractical. They didn't answer a need--they were essentially a solution without a problem. And to top it off: They don't even look like Dwight D. Eisenhower. He looks like an alien drag queen.

But my own petty disdain for Ikes aside, I am, at my heart, a coin collector. In my opinion, a coin should be interesting to be worthy of being collected. An indian cent on a gold planchet is an exciting off-metal strike. A 1943 copper cent. A norse medal in gold. Those are exciting. You can tell with your own eyes. A Denver Ike on a 40% silver planchet? Where's the fun in that? It's just a silver Ike. $25,000? Are you nuts?

Similarly, the Abe Frohman Super Duper Top Secret Prototype Eisenhower Dollar™ literally has a slightly fuzzy moon. It went unnoticed for half a century because nobody could see anything different. I've been a collector for more than 4 decades and even squinting and tilting my head, I couldn't see anything different. If it advances the hobby of numismatics, then it's probably worth a short article in The Numismatist or Coin Week. But a quarter of a million dollars? There are legitimate numismatic rarities--there are actual national treasures--with more significance, more history, more beauty that go unsold for a fraction of that. If the most fantastical type in the long, storied 100-month history of the Eisenhower dollar could just as easily be explained by a slightly used die or a tiny striking force irregularity, then it doesn't advance the hobby to act like it's the bees knees. It's just not. The 1976 variety 1 Ike? That I can see. That's interesting (mildly, but at least it's interesting).

A fuzzy moon? For a quarter million dollars? Get out of here.

kiyote

Didn’t one of our own forum members find one of these in a bank roll about a decade ago?

Mr Lindy

Mint Set only issue 1973D IKE with Super Crescent & Elliptical Clips potentially created had the gang punch fully sheared coin roll/strip metal. Unique for 1973 $
My favorite IKE Error & for me a Top 10 Error in my 4+ decades Archive of The Odd & Curious coinage collection.

IkesT

@Weiss You've wandered into the U.S. Coins forum again. Let's get you home. We'll put you in your comfy chair and give you your sleepytime applesauce.

SPalladino

@pruebas said:

@MarkKelley said:
Copper-nickel clad planchets either left over or rejected for proof coinage were shipped from San Francisco to Denver for use as business strikes. A silver blank mistakenly slipped into the shipment. The same thing also happened on a few half dollars as well.

Everybody thinks this, but I am sceptical. Silver (and gold) is more tightly controlled than normal CuNi material. I find it hard to believe any precious metal planchet was "mistakenly" anything.

....
This question was asked of Fred Weinberg in these forums sometime about 2015 or earlier:

Hi Fred,

In my mind, there are error experts, then there is you, IMO the most knowledgable individual on coin errors.

Curious what you think of the Ike "transitionals"

Do you consider the 74-D, 76-D, 77-D silver clad coins transitionals?
Do you consider the 73-S CN coins transitionals?

Thanks
Kevin

...
And here is the reply:

Kevin, FWIW I do not consider any of these four to be "transitional errors." I would call them "wrong metal errors," and for the silver ones struck in Denver would gladly consider calling them "wrong mint errors" if anybody wants to.

And also FWIW, I was at Coin World (not ANACS as I misspoke elsewhere) when the first of the 40% silver D-Mints surfaced. I had just opened a package with one in it and done weight and specific gravity to confirm it when the phone rang and a guy told me all excited that he had a 40% silver Ike struck at Denver and I said something to the effect of "What, another one?" and he said "WHAT???"

He was a blackjack dealer in Las Vegas and said that he occasionally encountered S-Mint 40% silver Ikes in the dollar coins they still used on the tables back then, but this was the first one he had seen with a D mint mark. Perhaps it was no coincidence that when I contacted the owner of the first coin for the story we did about the errors he was also from Vegas.

We naturally talked to the Mint, which was much more communicative back then, and they told us that Proof planchets of all denominations deemed unfit for Proof coinage at the SFAO were placed in barrels (not the normal tote bins) and shipped to Denver whenever they had enough barrels to fill up a truck, except for the cent planchets which could be used to make circulation strikes at the SFAO through 1974.

At some later date I learned from somebody at the Mint that because of our inquiry the Denver Mint had suspended the striking of the SFAO dollar planchets until they couild be checked by hand, and that in doing so they had discovered a few dozen more 40% silver planchets. I believe they also hand sorted all struck Ike dollars that had not yet left the Mint, but I don't recall if they found any more struck 40% silver coins. They may have.

I remember that it made me wish that we had not publicized the errors, because if we had not then more of them would have gotten out, but that's show biz!

FlyingAl

@SPalladino Very interesting thanks for the info. I guess the question still remains of what the mint would even consider sending silver planchets to Denver, and not just melt them at the SFAO. Is it safe to assume a few silver planchets were put into a barrel by mistake, and a full barrel was never sent?

FredWeinberg

I don’t believe I was the correct attribution for the above statement Dash I believe it sounds like Tom Delory to me

pruebas

@SPalladino said:

@pruebas said:

@MarkKelley said:
Copper-nickel clad planchets either left over or rejected for proof coinage were shipped from San Francisco to Denver for use as business strikes. A silver blank mistakenly slipped into the shipment. The same thing also happened on a few half dollars as well.

Everybody thinks this, but I am sceptical. Silver (and gold) is more tightly controlled than normal CuNi material. I find it hard to believe any precious metal planchet was "mistakenly" anything.

....
This question was asked of Fred Weinberg in these forums sometime about 2015 or earlier:

Hi Fred,

In my mind, there are error experts, then there is you, IMO the most knowledgable individual on coin errors.

Curious what you think of the Ike "transitionals"

Do you consider the 74-D, 76-D, 77-D silver clad coins transitionals?
Do you consider the 73-S CN coins transitionals?

Thanks
Kevin

...
And here is the reply:

Kevin, FWIW I do not consider any of these four to be "transitional errors." I would call them "wrong metal errors," and for the silver ones struck in Denver would gladly consider calling them "wrong mint errors" if anybody wants to.

And also FWIW, I was at Coin World (not ANACS as I misspoke elsewhere) when the first of the 40% silver D-Mints surfaced. I had just opened a package with one in it and done weight and specific gravity to confirm it when the phone rang and a guy told me all excited that he had a 40% silver Ike struck at Denver and I said something to the effect of "What, another one?" and he said "WHAT???"

He was a blackjack dealer in Las Vegas and said that he occasionally encountered S-Mint 40% silver Ikes in the dollar coins they still used on the tables back then, but this was the first one he had seen with a D mint mark. Perhaps it was no coincidence that when I contacted the owner of the first coin for the story we did about the errors he was also from Vegas.

We naturally talked to the Mint, which was much more communicative back then, and they told us that Proof planchets of all denominations deemed unfit for Proof coinage at the SFAO were placed in barrels (not the normal tote bins) and shipped to Denver whenever they had enough barrels to fill up a truck, except for the cent planchets which could be used to make circulation strikes at the SFAO through 1974.

At some later date I learned from somebody at the Mint that because of our inquiry the Denver Mint had suspended the striking of the SFAO dollar planchets until they couild be checked by hand, and that in doing so they had discovered a few dozen more 40% silver planchets. I believe they also hand sorted all struck Ike dollars that had not yet left the Mint, but I don't recall if they found any more struck 40% silver coins. They may have.

I remember that it made me wish that we had not publicized the errors, because if we had not then more of them would have gotten out, but that's show biz!

Very interesting. So it wasn't a mistake. It was intentional! That's probably even worse that employees would discard silver planchets in a container destined to make circulation strikes. But that also means there will be Denver Ikes struck on proof planchets. Not being an Ike specialist, I don't know if these are known. Are they?

SPalladino

@pruebas said:
But that also means there will be Denver Ikes struck on proof planchets. Not being an Ike specialist, I don't know if these are known. Are they?

We ca’t be certain, but apparently yes.

Zoins

@jt88 said:
Mint error coins looks very interesting and promising as long term investment.

They are very interesting. A good thing about many of these is that they are unique and unique tends to do well.

kiyote

Airplanenut— that’s who I was thinking of. Did he score one at a local bank?

IkesT

@kiyote said:
Airplanenut— that’s who I was thinking of. Did he score one at a local bank?

An off-metal Ike, do you mean? I believe @19Lyds found one at the bank.

SPalladino

@FredWeinberg said:
I don’t believe I was the correct attribution for the above statement Dash I believe it sounds like Tom Delory to me

I’m sorry for the misattribution. You are correct.

19Lyds

@FlyingAl said:
Alright, let’s pull this back on topic. The question is not who spent the money, it’s how on earth did a planchet only destined for San Francisco end up at Denver? Do the mints trade planchet bins? Ex. A bin goes to San Fran with silver planchets, then fills up with clad planchets for Denver, a silver planchet stuck in the very bottom, then struck at Denver?

From my understanding, the San Francisco mint was only producing collector coins and proof coins.
If a planchet had a defect which prevented it from being used in either the collector or proof coins then they were tossed in a barrel and shipped of to the Denver mint for standard production coinage.
This was NOT uncommon but also produced some rare coinage error's.

19Lyds

@IkesT said:

@kiyote said:
Airplanenut— that’s who I was thinking of. Did he score one at a local bank?

An off-metal Ike, do you mean? I believe @19Lyds found one at the bank.

Yes. He did and it was really super weird!

19Lyds

@Weiss said:
$26K and yet vastly more interesting than the "Abe Froman Prototype" Eisenhower dollars that someone buried themselves under a quarter million dollars in January.

Or maybe Eisenhower dollars have finally awoken from their 50 year slumber and claimed the "King of the Sleeper" title they so richly deserve.

Nah. They're still hella ugly and boring.

Make no mistake, collecting is about collecting and collecting can go into various different directions. I personally know of people whose primary goal is in collecting the highest possible grade of every Kennedy variety. And they have the means to address this desire.

Off metal error coins have ALWAYS demanded significant premiums and the 1977-D Eisenhower Dollar on a 40% Silver Planchet is no exception. From what I've seen, the 1977-D Ike on a 40% Silver planchet is one of the more rarer off metal pieces compared to the 1974-D and 1973-S coins.

Remember what the 1975 No S Proof set Dime commanded when it was last auctioned? $349,600 plus 10% Buyers premium. Why? Simple, because certain well established collectors wanted it to complete their "No S" collections.

The Prototype Ike Dollar is no different. Was it simply a blurry earth? No. It had completely different Obverse and Reverse die's than any previously known Eisenhower dollar based upon the professional opinions of established numismatic professionals.

Have Eisenhower Dollars finally awoken from their 50 year slumber? Perhaps. But remember, a LOT of people were pissed off about the Eisenhower Dollar. They'd invested thousands but were not rewarded for their investments. The Hype around the coin was greatly exaggerated as the 73-S Silver Proof, which initially sold for around $500, quickly lost money.

Are the coins ugly? Only if you do not appreciate clear fields, clear devices and the beauty of such a coin with you main focus on making a buck vs collecting the finest quality coin you can afford.

IMO, the old Morgan and Peace Dollars were quite nice but then, neither faced the production challenges of producing a quality coin under the burden of nobody knowing how to accurately produce these hard planchet coins when they came out in 1971.

19Lyds

@Weiss said:

@IkesT said:

Seems like you've been lost for a while, now. This is the U.S. Coins Forum. Why not go to another forum that better suits your interests?

Oh god. It was you, wasn't it? You spent a quarter million dollars on an Eisenhower dollar with the slightly blurry moon. I'm so sorry.

Nine out of 10 coin dealers agree: "You can just spend that one. It's only worth a dollar."

Which is what makes them rare in higher grades.

19Lyds

@pruebas said:

@MarkKelley said:
Copper-nickel clad planchets either left over or rejected for proof coinage were shipped from San Francisco to Denver for use as business strikes. A silver blank mistakenly slipped into the shipment. The same thing also happened on a few half dollars as well.

Everybody thinks this, but I am sceptical. Silver (and gold) is more tightly controlled than normal CuNi material. I find it hard to believe any precious metal planchet was "mistakenly" anything.

You've obviously never opened a $1,000 bag of dollar coins.
I have. There was a definite mixture of Morgans, Peace Dollars, Silver IKE Dollars and Silver Eagles.

Not everybody is a coin collector and, as such, not everybody knows what they are doing.

19Lyds

@Weiss said:
Look. Collect what you like.
Ikes are a nostalgic issue for most of us born at a more comfortable distance to the apocalypse. We remember being in awe at their size because they were the king of circulating coins. We might even remember the era when Presidents were actual war heroes and deserved to be recognized--in some way.

But objectively, Eisenhower dollars are one of the ugliest coin series America ever released. They were clunky. They were impractical. They didn't answer a need--they were essentially a solution without a problem. And to top it off: They don't even look like Dwight D. Eisenhower. He looks like an alien drag queen.

But my own petty disdain for Ikes aside, I am, at my heart, a coin collector. In my opinion, a coin should be interesting to be worthy of being collected. An indian cent on a gold planchet is an exciting off-metal strike. A 1943 copper cent. A norse medal in gold. Those are exciting. You can tell with your own eyes. A Denver Ike on a 40% silver planchet? Where's the fun in that? It's just a silver Ike. $25,000? Are you nuts?

Similarly, the Abe Frohman Super Duper Top Secret Prototype Eisenhower Dollar™ literally has a slightly fuzzy moon. It went unnoticed for half a century because nobody could see anything different. I've been a collector for more than 4 decades and even squinting and tilting my head, I couldn't see anything different. If it advances the hobby of numismatics, then it's probably worth a short article in The Numismatist or Coin Week. But a quarter of a million dollars? There are legitimate numismatic rarities--there are actual national treasures--with more significance, more history, more beauty that go unsold for a fraction of that. If the most fantastical type in the long, storied 100-month history of the Eisenhower dollar could just as easily be explained by a slightly used die or a tiny striking force irregularity, then it doesn't advance the hobby to act like it's the bees knees. It's just not. The 1976 variety 1 Ike? That I can see. That's interesting (mildly, but at least it's interesting).

A fuzzy moon? For a quarter million dollars? Get out of here.

" It went unnoticed for half a century because nobody could see anything different. "

Simply because nobody was really looking given the Ike Dollars reputation as a bad coin to invest in.
And where is this Abe Froman stuff coming from? It's the Lydston-Frohman piece.

MrEureka

Call me crazy, but that 77-D does not look like it was struck on a proof planchet. Could it be that a number of silver planchets intended for Blue Ikes or Bicentennial mint sets also found their way to Denver?

IkesT

@MrEureka said:
Call me crazy, but that 77-D does not look like it was struck on a proof planchet. Could it be that a number of silver planchets intended for Blue Ikes or Bicentennial mint sets also found their way to Denver?

That would be my assumption. I haven't seen a silver Denver Ike that looks like it was struck on a proof planchet.

However, some copper-nickel clad Denver Ikes are more brilliant than normal, and it is suspected that these may have been struck on proof planchets.

wondercoin

‘Remember what the 1975 No S Proof set Dime commanded when it was last auctioned? $349,600 plus 10% Buyers premium. Why? Simple, because certain well established collectors wanted it to complete their "No S" collections.’

Great to see you posting again “Lloyd”. 😉 I like much of what you said. Just one correction…

I didn’t buy the No S Dime at a bit under $500,000 at auction to complete a No S collection. Nor did my ultimate buyer who bought it from me (less than a week later literally out of the blue) for a bit over $500,000 buy it for that purpose whatsoever.

Congratulations on the wonderful price obtained on your Prototype Ike! I’ve got some interesting information to share with you on that auction. Perhaps we will get to run into each other at an upcoming Long Beach show!

Wondercoin

pruebas

@19Lyds said:

@pruebas said:

@MarkKelley said:
Copper-nickel clad planchets either left over or rejected for proof coinage were shipped from San Francisco to Denver for use as business strikes. A silver blank mistakenly slipped into the shipment. The same thing also happened on a few half dollars as well.

Everybody thinks this, but I am sceptical. Silver (and gold) is more tightly controlled than normal CuNi material. I find it hard to believe any precious metal planchet was "mistakenly" anything.

You've obviously never opened a $1,000 bag of dollar coins.
I have. There was a definite mixture of Morgans, Peace Dollars, Silver IKE Dollars and Silver Eagles.

Not everybody is a coin collector and, as such, not everybody knows what they are doing.

I was referring to AT THE MINT. It was assumed since we were talking about the manufacture of these coins and silver planchets being left in the bin, etc.

Clearly no one at the mint is going to mix those coins in a bag.

metalmeister

Me thinks: Inside job. Only a hunch.

Mr Lindy

Wondercoin, you have handled some amazing modern coins !

@wondercoin said:
‘Remember what the 1975 No S Proof set Dime commanded when it was last auctioned? $349,600 plus 10% Buyers premium. Why? Simple, because certain well established collectors wanted it to complete their "No S" collections.’

Great to see you posting again “Lloyd”. 😉 I like much of what you said. Just one correction…

I didn’t buy the No S Dime at a bit under $500,000 at auction to complete a No S collection. Nor did my ultimate buyer who bought it from me (less than a week later literally out of the blue) for a bit over $500,000 buy it for that purpose whatsoever.

Congratulations on the wonderful price obtained on your Prototype Ike! I’ve got some interesting information to share with you on that auction. Perhaps we will get to run into each other at an upcoming Long Beach show!

Wondercoin

Zoins

Great result!

Is there a census for what the "about 15 pieces are known struck on planchets intended for 40% silver San Francisco Bicentennial Ike dollars" indicated by Heritage / Breen?

It would be great to see the dates/mintmarks for these.

Here's the full info from Heritage. It's interesting that this coin has been sold on Heritage 3 times, or all known appearances for this coin!

1977-D Eisenhower Dollar, MS63
Struck on a 40% Silver Planchet
Transitional Alloy Error

1977-D $1 -- Struck on a 40% Silver Planchet -- MS63 NGC. Breen-5774. 24.9 gm. A clad Eisenhower dollar should weigh 22.7 gm. Walter Breen states in his 1988 Encyclopedia that about 15 pieces are known struck on planchets intended for 40% silver San Francisco Bicentennial Ike dollars. This is a lustrous and nicely struck mint error with peripheral straw-gold toning and a few minor obverse field grazes. The strike details are remarkably strong throughout, undoubtedly from being struck in silver, which is much softer than the usual nickel.
Ex: New York Signature (Heritage, 2/2014), lot 5287; FUN Signature (Heritage, 1/2017), lot 6370, where it brought $17,625.

Zoins

@Weiss said:
$26K and yet vastly more interesting than the "Abe Froman Prototype" Eisenhower dollars that someone buried themselves under a quarter million dollars in January.

Or maybe Eisenhower dollars have finally awoken from their 50 year slumber and claimed the "King of the Sleeper" title they so richly deserve.

Nah. They're still hella ugly and boring.

Ike dollar collectors have been loving the Moon for long before the Prototype Dollars.

They were prepared for this

Check this out:

https://www.pcgs.com/coinfacts/coin/1972-1-type/87409

Byers

@Zoins

Nice comparison of the 3 types from CoinFacts