The lightbulb went off today about our 2016 100th Anniversary gold coins.
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I have always wished the coins were larger. This just occurred to me today. I'll bet the Mint made these coins undersized on purpose so folks could not gold plate the normal vintage coins and pass them off in the plastic capsules as genuine specimens. What do you think?
PS Collectors know the fineness is on the originals but the non-collectors...
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If that's what they did it was good planning as it wouldn't have been the first time.
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Except the Merc is pretty close to the same size, isn't it?
I would think it was more a question of using their standard planchet sizes. I could look it up, but are the sizes the same as the Eagles?
Okay, I looked it up.
Standing Lib Quarter 24.3 mm
Gold standing liberty quarter 22 mm
$10 American Gold Eagle 22 mm
Mercury Dime - 17.91 mm
Gold mercury dime-16.5 mm
$5 gold eagle - 16.5 mm
Quid Erat Demonstratum
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
And non-collectors probably also don't know they aren't the same size, so the chance to deceive some people with plated coins still exists.
It is a nice theory and would make a lot of sense, but I assumed they just wanted to use standard gold planchets, as someone mentioned.
They were made undersized to fit on 1/10, 1/4 and 1/2 ozt gold buff blanks. They're the same size and weight...
Thanks. Economic reason must be the answer.
Suspect the reasons are what Backroadjunkie said, plus the difference in density of gold versus silver alloy, and avoiding a planchet this was too thin.
Coinfacts pages for these coins are very sloppy.
Collector, occasional seller
What's up with those mintage numbers on the quarter and half? I thought they were capped at 100K?
The whole worlds off its rocker, buy Gold™.
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Wooooha! Did someone just say it's officially "TACO™" Tuesday????
This, plus the collar dies plus the capsules and perhaps some other packaging.
Sorry about your lightbulb.
Like I said, very sloppy. The 2015HR gold CF page shows a mintage of just 21,676, oddly specific, but final mintage was 49,325.
Collector, occasional seller
I t might be more likely some 'craftsman' may get the idea to change the '2' in the date into a '1' then plate the coin in silver-especially with the SLQ.
Here's the thread created on CU:
2016 Centennial Gold 1916 coins (16XA, 16XB, 16XC)
It was before the transition, so all the images are gone.
It is also before I started putting in an informal index, so information is difficult to find, but at least it's all in one place....
Thanks but no need to be sorry. The bulb "went off." It did not go "out." Hopefully it will burn for a little