Another Error that Must have had Help

Which brings up the point again - every coin is visually inspected at the mint. These people spend their entire day looking at them. If the difference is as noticeable as you say, they would have absolutely caught it.

And thus, I maintain that it had help.

 

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That visual "inspection" didn't stop fin rimmed mercs, or horrendous quality baseball dollars ect.

 

So-called finned rims, within tolerance, are allowed. And they aren't grading the coins - they are counting and verifying no major anomalies. They wouldn't stop an MS-60 from going out the door - they would stop one on the wrong planchet or with the wrong weight.

 

Did you see this set?
https://coins.ha.com/itm/errors/fiv...?ic3=ViewItem-Auction-Open-ThisAuction-120115

 

I didn't, but I'm glad that Heritage at least realized this one was intentionally created:

 

I need to get a job at the mint. Apparently you can just make whatever you want there.

 

I'm not trying to say that the coin was or was not intentionally made. I'm more like trying to tell people that finding this "error" was not something that can only be done on a scale. There are visual differences between a 24kt gold and 22kt gold planchet. It's one of the reason's why I don't like the look the Gold Eagle's.

 

Someday I hope to have enough money/access/time to get to the point where I can visually tell the difference between 22kt and 24kt gold planchets.

 

I don't have any gold. But if you ever get a chance at a show or shop and they have both in stock ask them to show both to you. It's pretty striking how different they actually appear. I do plan on getting some gold though this year.

 

There have been special coins minted for rich or powerful collectors as long as there has been a mint.

 

I'm not sure that I buy that the piece was intentionally struck to be an error. If you are going to risk your job/future, why not make a more interesting error? As sloppy as the Mint can be when mass producing bullion, I could see it happening as an honest mistake that may have slipped detection (as opposed to the struck on nail error that Heritage offered previously).

 

Much is being made of the visual differences and the weight and the statement of course it's intentional, how could it escape detection. But that misses several points.

1. It's not one lone actor, somebody had to know how to run the press AND place it in box going to AMPEX to be discovered. The box prep is automated. Stopping the line to switch a coin is highly visible. Especially someone with no business in that room.

2. You do something repetitious for hours at a time, your brain goes into zombie mode. It sees what it expects to see, not what is really there. So the QA process is actually of limited use.

 

I'm firmly in the dunno camp at present. However, if it was done deliberately, it could have been done a fairly low risk manner depending on inside access to planchets and knowledge of where newly minted batches were going. It would be a matter of switching planchets that are about to go to the press or perhaps inserting a buffalo planchet in the eagle planchets without a switch. Then the perpetrator(s) would have to know where the newly minted batches were headed. The beauty of the scheme is that there would be no need to smuggle the error coin(s) out; it (or they) would go out the normal route. The biggest risk is getting caught doing the planchet switch (or addition), but it may be possible to do it in a way that makes the perp simply look careless or dumb rather than crooked. Second biggest risk would be the error coin(s) not going where they thought they would.

Cal

 

It wasn't. It was dealers that move megavolume of slabbed modern coins, many to cable TV shows.

 

It's easier than you might think. AGE blanks are noticeably larger than gold Buff blanks. This was as "created" as anything ever has been. Unless... this is but one of a whole tray load, and the others need to be found.

But one Buff planchet in a tray of AGE planchets would stick out like the proverbial sore thumb.

 

You likely already possess the needed skills. All you need is the opportunity. Even after striking, the size difference is appreciable.

 

Uh, a Buffalo is 31.108 g, 32.7 mm diameter, 2.95 mm thick. An 1 oz AGE is 33.930 g, 32.7 mm diameter, and 2.87 mm thick. It's a difference of ~2 g and 0.08 mm thickness. I would say that does not count as noticeable. If anything, it would be noticed by the color.

 

Yeah, I saw those numbers too and they have to be wrong. If they were correct, then the Buff would be the bigger hunk of metal and that's not possible. It's less total metal than the ASE, and when you look at them side by side, that's clear.

 

I was puzzled by that as well. There isn't anything you can alloy with gold to make it denser, except maybe osmium or iridium, and that's not what they put into AGEs.

If a Buffalo is denser (because it's pure gold), and lighter (because it's one ounce of gold with nothing else added, it has to be smaller in at least one dimension. Or hollow.

That's for blanks, though. Once the design is struck, you could make the rim as tall as you like by just deepening the fields, within limits.

 

Yep, sometimes "research" goes beyond looking something up, and instead requires making sure the info you looked up can possibly be true. In this case, it can't. It's the Internet - lots of the stuff on it is false. It's the curse of all "wikis" - no editors to block false Bull-oney.