How do experimental pieces [image] 'get out' into public's hands?
Tarmac
Posts: 394 ✭
This is an experimental/trial piece for SBA. $ I believe. Piece was a test used to show Congressional members.
How does it end up in the public's hands? I would think they all get destroyed after the tests are conducted.
How does it end up in the public's hands? I would think they all get destroyed after the tests are conducted.
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Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
Stolen and smuggled out by a mint employee.
I can understand one or two but not 2 dozen. And wouldn't gov't go after the coins and the perp if known?
When adhesive stamps first came out they were experimenting with them for almost a year at the printing plant I worked at. You cannot imagine the security! For freaking stamps. Trash and spoilage was collected and counted hourly. We finally dropped our bid because the bookkeeping and added security ate away all the profits.
I can only imagine as much if not more security in the minting process.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
<< <i>How does it end up in the public's hands? I would think they all get destroyed after the tests are conducted. >>
Here is a link that'll answer your question. These pieces were not produced by the US Mint.
LINK
Thanks for the link. I did not know that story.
Mark
I would answer this question with a, NO.
These are not US Mint made planchets. They are an interesting bit of history, but I am actually surprised that PCGS would slab them. PCGS usually will not slab non US Mint experiments like these Gallery Mint Concept Dollars. They are also an interesting part of the small dollar story, but not US coins.
PCGS does slab unstruck planchets, but to the best of my knowledge, would only label them as US if they were made by the US minit.
<< <i>I don't know the answer to your question, but I was wondering how this coin would be an error, isn't it a pattern, also how did they come up with MS62?-----BigE >>
I'd crack it and send it back in. They obviously graded the reverse as the obverse, unless they meant to stick it in the holder backwards. Easy upgrade
<< <i>PCGS usually will not slab non US Mint experiments >>
The will slab the Martha Washington pieces too. Other than the ones produced in 1965 most if not all of the others were struck outside the Mint. They would loan out the dies to the outside firms that were running the tests. That is why they have gotten out and why there are things like the copper plated zinc blanks struck with Martha dime sized dies. The Mint has said in the past that they didn't use the Martha dies for the tests on the cent alloys. So they were probably made by someone at one of the outside firms as a lark. Someone who was probably a collector and who could easily get access to a blank cent planchet.
<< <i> Is this unstruck planchet really a coin as some of you are refering to it? >>
I lobbied profusely to have this piece listed in Andrew Pollock's book on Patterns since his book does include privately minted pieces that were proposed to the Mint and/or Congress for their composition or design. He steadfastly refused it's inclusion solely on the reasoning that it was an unstruck planchet.
<< <i>Conder 101- the 9th edition of Judd on page 288 lists the Martha Washington Cent as Judd 2180 and dates it to 1982 when the U.S. Mint changed the composition of the alloy for the cent. >>
I know, and the mint has said that they didn't use the Martha Washington dies during the testing of the copper plated zinc alloy. And if they did, why would they use the wrong size dies? It seems to me that it is more likely that it is the unofficial product of some employee at one of the outside firms involved in later tests.