something i thought about a few months ago when i heard about what i call the heathen dollar but most people call it the godless dollar, you know the washington dollar coin on which in god we trust is missing. that coin is worth a pretty penny (get it?) anyway, i have read that it was an accident, as well as other errors. BUT...are they all really accidents? i'm wondering if some of the 'accidents' are acutally 'purposes'? i'm wondering if some coin makers purposely create errors coins just to have something different and valuable out there for coin collectors. what do y'all think?
Probably not. But the mule does make you wonder if some mint sport was going on between employees. Did any other presidents miss the edge lettering?
Different animal entirely. Yes, there are deliberate errors made by scammers at the mint. But they are not acting in any official capacity. They are crooks, they get caught and they go to jail. Yes, several did.
Inreality the Mint, like all of our government, is out to make as much money as possible. Send a government employee to jail? Yeah, maybe, but when did anyone ever hear of a Mint employee going to jail, getting fined, fired from the job? The true story is there is a agency in the Mint dedicated to create, distribute, notify the public of potential errors. This is the MESS department. Noted as the Mint Error Secret Service. Haven't you ever wondered how it is possible for the slightest errors in a coin to be so readily found. Those little tiny things that 99% of the population would never notice unless they were informed. Example is the 1970S Lincoln Cent, large and small date. The MESS department was probably awarded a medal for that one.
In my early error collecting days, the treasury department's position was that the US mint did not make errors. There were many tales of arrests & error coin confiscations. Very best regards, collect89
