Mint wants aluminum cent back.

Looks like you really never own your coins.

http://www.numismaticnews.net/article/mint-wants-aluminum-cent-back?et_mid=665664&rid=238113532

 

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Interesting story. I would hate to think that the mint would want the coin back just to destroy it.

 

Hardly. It would go into the National Numismatic Collection or be put on display as another of the

Nations most Treasured Numismatic Specimens!

Actually, this entire action by the US Mint is one which "could" affect a whole lot of other coin collectors in that, if it sets a precedent, any other coin which was not issued as "legal tender" could be confiscated as well.

Can you say "1913 Liberty Nickel"?

 

If they still have the dies, the mint could strike a few million of them and sell them to collectors, make some money, make collectors happy. That's what Brooks said she was going to do anyway if they weren't returned-strike millions of them and release them into circulation. Why don't they check their vaults maybe they already have a few million bags in storage.

 

Never officially released so it is property of the US MINT.

Yes the Pattern collectors may be watching wide eyed as they may be in the same boat.

 

I’m all for confiscation or flooding the market with them. Otherwise, as has already been done many times, you allow an unscrupulous mint employee the opportunity to enrich themselves and their families. Make a few of these super rarities and no one has to ever work again.

 

That is what immediately struck me as well. I certainly am not a pattern collector, but I find the field very interesting. This kind of precedent could spell the end for that area of collecting. I wonder how organizations with large pattern collections such as the ANA would react if such a recall were announced.

 

Unscrupulous? He kept the coins he "accumulated" in a baggie!
Besides, since there is no record of them being produced, not even any record of the blanks coming into the Denver house so whose to say he wasn't given the coin by the Superintendent? Too bad he died in the very year he left the mint.

 

If I owned a 1913 Liberty Nickel, I think I'd be asking my attorney(s) to sit in with the defense team on this one since those coins were/are just as illegal as the 1974-D Cent. No doubt about it!

Minted with government property on government presses using government dies and then taken off the premises.

 

If this coin was obtained illegally I hope that the government is able to secure its return. Government workers can't just walk off with property that isn't theirs.

 

I agree about the 1913 Liberty Nickel, should have been yanked years ago.

 

I think it's all well and good if such pieces are confiscated from former mint employees as well as their families.

now if it were some Joe out there.....

Meanwhile in a parallel universe,

The story said that there was a death. The heir took the property of the deceased. Among the property is a desk. The coins in the otherwise empty desk were obscured somehow from notice, and the desk was donated to Goodwill or Salvation Army, or sold at a yard sale. The new owner is in his mid 20's (too young to have had a part in that coin leaving the mint) and no member of his family has ever worked for the mint.

Now should Joe's undeniably awesome dumb luck go back on him? I think that would be terribly unjust.

 

i think they are pursuing it mainly because his family has connections to the mint.

 

Weren't some of these coins given to Congressmen in an attempt to convince them to push the legislation for the new material? Were those coins legally recalled from those individuals? If not, wouldn't that mean those specific examples can be legally owned?

 

If the mint can't get their stuff back from a sitting congressman...

 

I think the question is...who's stuff is it? Did the mint give the coins to the Congressmen or did the mint show to coin to the Congressmen. If they gave them to the Congressmen...then the coin should belong to them.

 

they were supposed to have all been returned. The fact that the politicians get away with it but the little guy gets screwed is no surprise to me. They could have easily traced them back then.

 

I wonder what they were actually told when they were given the coins. But, if they were told to return them then they should have. I also think it would be hard to force someone to return too...Congressman or not. Lets say they gave one to 50 members of this forum to be evaluated and returned. Lets say five members "lost" their example and thus could not return it. What would the mint do...come and search their house and office. As long as the coin just "disappeared" and did not resurface...Congressman or regular forum Joe would possess the coin.

Now, if it ever came up for sale...then they might jump on it (like they are now).

 

The thing I think some are forgetting, is the one in the OP is the Denver mint coin not the Philly coins. No trails were reportedly made at Denver , This is where the problem lies.

 

The mint passed the samples out to the congress back then and some were apparently pocketed. What does that say about congressman? The Philly example was picked up by a Capitol Hill police officer on the house floor and he kept it as a souvenir.

Not sure why the mint is going after some 40 year old theft, especially since it was likely a congressman that likely stole it in the first place.