Another Error that Must have had Help

I was thinking along the lines of one got dropped and put back in the wrong place some freak incident like that that lead to an uneven count and one just randomly being moved to the other pile. With the amount of surveillance they have to have in a room with that much gold I have a hard time imagining someone could just freely rummage through them to make a deliberate switch. Then again it is possible they only check the video if the count is wrong and cannot be accounted for

 

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Unless the Mint identifies a specific chain of events, there's no reason to think you're wrong, just possibilities.

I want to be outraged, but then I think of the long and illustrious history of "private issues" from the US Mint, and shut my mouth. Is it any "less" illegal when it carries the Superintendent's imprimatur?

 

If a Mint employee can pull a scam like this (provided, of course, that it is a scam), doing it just once can be a good payday.

 

If it is someone having some fun makes you wonder how many other years may have something like that that has never been noticed. They certainly do have an illustrious history of being "creative" I just figured video surveillance has put an end to that barring some behind the scenes pre-approval from the higher ups. Wouldn't be a bad marketing plan at all.

 

Well, I did attend a public handwringing session at the Mint a couple months ago, where they were seeking ways to (essentially) remain relevant....

 

Was this one of the suggestions lol. Hopefully they take the good suggestions into consideration and start listening to the collecting base

 

Well to think outside the box a bit, are both planchets supplied by the same vendor? If so, it could have been an "Error" on the vendor's end. As the video provided by @physics-fan3.14 show's, the planchets are simply counted to verify the count provided by the vendor and then loaded into the presses. Only a small sample of the planchets are assayed for fineness. Just a theory.

 

Oh, they had no interest whatsoever in the "collector base," just what the dealers wanted from them. If you'd like that clarified in more, ahem, eloquent terms, just ask @V. Kurt Bellman .

 

Pragmatic innocent theory: Someone at the mint who hadn't had their coffee yet pulled the wrong tube of planchets out of the vault. Which means there's another 19 or so more out there. Folks, get your scales out. I bet it was discovered by being weighed at a pawn shop . . . who then sold it to a dealer.
I'm betting that it goes for $25K. The fact that you can't even "see" the error means nothing. How many people (besides me) have bought coins where you need 10x magnification to see the variety or error?

 

Well at least dealers will want things that sell, hopefully it was dealers that have a clue. It has to be an improvement from the status quo

 

It has not been mentioned once in this thread. This "error" was not discovered in a pawn shop. The error was discovered by APMEX, whom I believe if they wanted to special order something like this, could have the pull to do it.

 

Really? That stinks to high heaven.

On the other hand, the coin being discussed is nearly three full grams lighter than it should be. That would be a noticeable number even in a 20oz tube, especially if they've a checks-and-balances procedure in place.

 

Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity.

If I handed you a planchet and told you to put it away, would you be able to tell the difference between 1.00001 and 1.09xxx oz? I doubt it.

Since AMPEX found it in a box, aren't there lot #s and traceability? Sure there are. The mint knows the boxes they shipped to AMPEX and when they were produced.

Now certainly there were several errors of process (including the basic precaution of never having the two types of planchet together at once). But I prefer to believe it's a happy accident.

 

Conspiracy theories are much more intriguing than accidents or stupidity . . . Assuming it would take more than one person at the mint to make this magic happen (planchet selection, minting, quality control, shipping it to a specific address) I have to go with happy accident.

 

My understanding is that the eagles and buffaloes are not made on the same day, or certainly not at the same time. It would not simply be a matter of dropping one in the wrong tray.

Dime on nail, anyone? Seems like every few months one of these "errors" comes out.

They aren't just counted. Watch the video again. Each tube is individually weighed (after striking, before boxing them up). This significant of a mistake would have absolutely shown up, if the normal process was followed. Ergo, the process wasn't followed. Rationally deducing, it was intentionally made.

 

Those have been around for decades that wasn't anything new, aside from the getting it slabbed part

 

While I'm not terribly surprised that the coin came from a high volume bullion dealer, I seriously doubt they could "special order" something like this. I don't know offhand, but it might violate some kind of law for the Mint to make one of these officially.

Totally agree. This situation practically cries out for an application of Hanlon's Razor. Occam's Razor also applies, since the simplest explanation is that it happened by accident.

Wrong... rationally deducing that it was intentionally made, or some kind of error was made (possibly due to unusual circumstances at the Mint).

From a pure Bayesian point of view, taking into account the total mintage of Buffalo $1 coins and the fact that only one of these things has surfaced, this is almost surely at most a probability 1 in 100,000 event. I could believe such a thing could happen once and just happened to be detected. If a second one surfaces, I would be much more suspect.

Let's put it this way: I have much more confidence this was a true error than the 1959-D wheat cent was.

 

What is the use case the computer was programmed for? A trivial difference in total weight or a +1 / -1 shortage?

At 19 3/4 oz troy or 20 1/4 you alarm. Not at 20 1/10...

 

I'm not sure that would impact my feelings if a tube of plancets got switched or something of that nature. We all seem to agree that this isn't something the overwhelming majority of people would have even noticed.

 

I am fairly sure someone noticed it visually. The color difference between a Gold Eagle and a Gold Buffalo is subtle, but noticeable. A Gold buffalo being .9999 pure gold has a deep yellow butter color compared to a Gold Eagle which is .9167 Gold with copper and silver added has a slightly more red appearance. If you set both coins next two each other, the difference is pretty noticeable. So a tube of Gold Eagles with one planchet being .9999 pure will stand out from the rest of the other 19.