Third two-tailed Washington quarter surfaces

kranky

All three first surfaced in California, suggesting there were some hijinks going on in the SF Mint.
Link.

techeff

125K! He must be smoking some of that Cali weed.

coinguy89

<< <i>125K! He must be smoking some of that Cali weed. >>



Yeah and I bet someone buys it for that.

kieferscoins

<< <i>Yeah and I bet someone buys it for that. >>



Wanna bet?

Cameron Kiefer

coinguy89

<< <i>

<< <i>Yeah and I bet someone buys it for that. >>



Wanna bet?

Cameron Kiefer >>



People are dumb.

kieferscoins

Are you referring to the potential buyer or me wanting to bet?

I'll bet you $20.

Cameron Kiefer

coinguy89

<< <i>Are you referring to the potential buyer or me wanting to bet?

I'll bet you $20.

Cameron Kiefer >>



Sorry Cam, I can't afford to just take risks with money. What do you think one of those should sell for?

Coinosaurus

Is this a discovery coin??? Had not heard about this one.........

DCAM

Why did they slab this dateless junk?

dthigpen

<< <i>

<< <i>Are you referring to the potential buyer or me wanting to bet?

I'll bet you $20.

Cameron Kiefer >>



Sorry Cam, I can't afford to just take risks with money. What do you think one of those should sell for? >>



Two Fiddy

PhillyJoe

Do you like the obverse or reverse better?

Let me ask a simple question; under any normal production circumstances, is this even possible? Two reverse dies on the same coin?

joe

lordmarcovan

<< <i>Let me ask a simple question; under any normal production circumstances, is this even possible? Two reverse dies on the same coin? >>



Good question. I was told for years that it wasn't, but I've heard of one or two being authenticated in the last few years (there was an Indian cent, I think?).

Certainly that is a very rare item and bound to have a comma and some zeroes in the pricetag. But I think the seller put one or two zeroes too many in there.

Regulated

I have examined one of the coins. Here is how it was made:

A mint employee took (or made) a brockage with the negative impression of the reverse. He or she then put a planchet into the press(inside the collar), placed the brockage on top of it, then struck the coin.

The one I examined was in the company of a two-headed quarter made the same way; however, because the reverse die was the anvil die, the brockage had to be placed in the collar, resulting in an oversized 2-headed quarter. The nitwit who made it reeded the edge after the fact.

IMHO these coins are bogus, despite the fact that they were almost certainly struck at the SF Mint.

BigE

I don't think he really expects for someone to use BIN. He says to "call him with offers".-------------------BigE

errormaven

There are two other two-tailed quarters that were struck only once, and die-struck on both faces. There's also a two-tailed dime, presumably produced at about the same time in San Francisco. There's also a two-headed 1859 Indian cent, but that's a different story with a credible explanation.

If I interpret the slab correctly, this coin was struck once between the two dies, and then struck a second time, with a fresh planchet intervening between one die and the coin. So it could also be called "double-struck, in-collar, with full uniface strike on second strike", or "double-struck, in-collar, with full indent on second strike".

The scenario you paint is that the distorted face carries a full counterbrockage and that it never received a die struck design on that face. While I can't eliminate that possibility, it doesn't look like a counterbrockage from my vantage point.

Two-tailed coins that are die-struck on both faces are generally thought to be "assisted errors". There are a number of two-tailed Canadian cents, including one that transformed itself into a die cap. There is a two-tailed Mexican peso, two-tailed and two-headed Jamaican cents, two-tailed Euros, etc. I consider them to be mint-made novelty items. Still, people will fork over 50k or more to have the stateside versions.

-- Mike Diamond

Regulated

If it was intentionally made by a mint employee, wouldn't it be illegal to own?

errormaven

The Secret Service indicated that they're not interested in them. I suppose they have more important duties to attend to these days.

Regulated

I looked at the coin in question up close with a loupe - it appeared to me to be a counterbrockage.

errormaven

Interesting. What led you to believe it was a counterbrockage, rather than a full, in-collar indent on the second strike?

All of the full, centered, first-strike counterbrockages I've encountered show the design running off the edge of the coin. Then again, this was probably a "special order", so the usual conditions need not apply. Still, the rim appears to be intact, and you'd expect even a special order counterbrockage to at least lose the rim.

On the die-struck face, did you see any trace of doubling? A complete absence of doubling would lend support (but would not prove) your interesting scenario.

The rather poor photo in the auction listing seems to show a warped die-struck surface, which is more consistent with a uniface second strike. A full, first-strike, in-collar counterbrockage would not be expected to create warping.

Regulated

The reverse didn't appear to me to be doubled at all. As for the rim, I theorized (correctly or not) that if the brockage was seated carefully enough upon/into the collar, it might not lose the rim.

coinguy89

It will be interesting to see what happens with it.

flaminio

<< <i>Wanna bet? >>

I'll bet you $125,000 .