1999 Prototype 2000 P Sac. Dollar aka "Circulated Cheerios Dollar".

IMO, much has already been written about these coins and how to identify them. Therefore, a short news story about a lucky collector finding one in circulation because he put in the effort is the typical "discovery story" we often read about in the numismatic press. No big deal. What is the big deal to me is YOUR story - your thought process and research labout the coins ike what you have written here (and more) in order to preserve a facinating "story" for future numismatists/collectors.

 

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Much of the story is already on www.smalldollars.com

This piece, if verified, would be the first piece that I known of to be recovered from circulation. That to me would be a story.

 

I have two circulated 1999 protypes, one was certified as AU 58 but not as a prototype, just a 2000 P Sac. $1. As far as I know, the graders will not certify or verify a circulated 1999 prototype as a Cheerio or even as a prototye, or pattern.

For historical records, it would be nice to have a place to record known cross overs between graders. I know of three. I can provide numbers and grader including crossover numbers.

 

The evolution of Cheerios Dollar grading has been confusing to pretty much everyone, including the graders. I have noted discrepancies between PCGS and NGC. I have not investigated ANACS or ICG Cheerios Dollars.

PCGS has a "CHEERIOS DOLLAR" and a "CHEERIOS DOLLAR FS902" for the same prototype fine detailed coin. I think the earlier PCGS items were labeled with FS-902 and the designation was later dropped.

As far as know, PCGS will not grade a non-fine detailed prototype as a Cheerios. Therefore, I would not send any it to PCGS. There are two tells on the obverse of the Cheerios Dollars for the prototypes with detailed tailfeathers. The tells are blemishes that were polished out before the non-prototype coins were run. Both are on the cloak, one just below the P and one at the tail end on the wrap, on the right.

Further, PCGS pop report is confusing as it has all Cheerios dollars listed as 411990 which opens up to show a "Base" and the 147231 which is the FS-902.

The 411990 row totals the number of BASE and 147231 coins. I emailed and have called PCGS but could not get any answer on what a "Base" coin is. I guess they are not interested in finding out or no one really knows. I have also emailed and asked PCGS to recognize the circulated 1999 prototype but never received an answer. I am sure they have a reason.

NGC has a "CHEERIOS PROMOTION REGULAR REVERSE" meaning the coin has the fine prototype detail tailfeathers. They (NGC) have also labeled a coin "CHEERIOS PROMOTION" meaning the coin does not have the fine prototype detail tailfeathers.

Further, now this is funny.... NGC coin 3004230-001 has fine prototype detail tailfeathers and the coin is simply labeled as "2000 P PATTERN", no reference to a Cheerios promotion. To make it worse, NGC coin 3004230-002 is most likely the companion penny and it is labeled "2000 CLOSE "AM" 1C CHEERIOS PROMOTION".

This discrepancy is most likely due to the evolution of discovery, no one expected a non-pattern Cheerios to turn up so calling a coin a "Pattern" and leaving off the "Cheerios" made sense. It also saved some ink.

In the future there will be a demand and premium for specific labels or mis-labels for these coins. LOL

 

OK, I'm confused.

This is what I thought was going on:

Some detailed TF Sac's were put in Cheerios packages. Some regular Sac's were also put in Cheerios packs. BOTH dollars are "Cheerios" dollars. One is the sought after variety and one is a normal Sac that becomes nothing if removed from the pack except by a TPGS and labeled as such.

AFAIK, there is no way to tell if any detailed TF Sac's were released into circulation. If that is not the case, and these coins ONLY came from the batch sent to General Mills, then they should be labeled as such. Otherwise, they should be labeled as the variety w/o the Cheerios designation.

Am I missing something?

PS Dave, I doubt if 1% of coin heads ever heard of that website. I do remember reading that story a few years ago.

 

Yeah, we are both confused. The graders do not work for me. LOL. They are more confused than a politician trying to stop inflation with a wand made from the limb of the Magic Money Tree.

I think graders are too busy to be concerned with the small number of confused collectors of Cheerios.

Seems every day new coins and errors show up in all modern coins. I can understand why this tiny segment is not a priority.

Their loss.

 

Sometimes the two top TPGS's get a bad rap. When they both started (1986 -1987) they were a joke when it came to varieties. They didn't recognize most of them, missed a lot of obvious ones, and didn't do tokens either. ANACS ran rings around them because their graders were true "coinheads" and not former coin dealers. The top two have become much better over the decades. From what I see, much of the problems remaining involve misattributions of tokens. We tend to forget that the volume of coins they do a week must be very daunting.

I have the luxury of spending 15 minutes attributing just one CWT with 24 different similar reverse dies Fuld#296-319 just now (and then posting about it here for another 5 minutes). The problem arises when slabbed coins attributed on the Internet and even in auctions are incorrect. I often use these images to verify my attribution: however many times (with this token too) they don't match the image in the Fuld Reference Book!

 

I have seen this coin in hand. It is a legit circulated pattern reverse coin.
TD

 

Very, very, very cool!

 

Update. Questions on authenticity, grade, and cleaning now settled. The question if $2000 was too much to pay for the coin, time will tell. "Buy high sell higher.", as the most successful buyers say.

Special "Thank you" to CaptHenway for information and advice.





My other Circulated Cheerios Dollar was graded a AU 55 at the same time. This had been graded as an regular 2000-P dollar (AU58) by PCGS. PCGS refused to acknowledge it as a Cheerios because they did not open the original package. For my collection, the downgrade is less important than the designation.
Of note, ANACS asked me if it was alright to cross over at a lower grade before they opened the slab. Great communications from ANACS. See pictures.