another expensive mistake

http://www.numismaster.com/ta/numis/Article.jsp?ad=article&ArticleId=25712

 

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Wow!

 

I always wanted a Sac mule. Guess I can forget about it.

 

Quoting:

An error coin, a Sacagawea dollar reverse muled with a Washington state quarter obverse, brought $155,250... though no date appears, the Philadelphia coin is from the year 2000. Numismatic Guaranty Corporation graded it MS-67.

Question:
How can they tell it's a Washington state from a partial obverse alone and how can the date be verified? I'm sure there's a simple answer, as my knowledge of modern coins is seriously lacking.

 

For what it's worth, I posted these questions at "Ask NGC" along with an excerpt from the article. It may take a few days to get an answer, but I'll post it as soon as I get a response.

Chris

 

I think they mean its a Washington (the president) quarter not Washington (the state) quarter.

 

I was thinking the same thing and this is one of the things I asked of NGC. I am guessing that the author of the article could have done a better job of conveying his thoughts.

Chris

 

I think they meant "Washington (pause) state quarter", not "Washington state (pause) quarter". It is George Washington's portrait as it appeared on the SQs. As for the date, as far as I can tell, it is an educated guess; they write that 2000 was "the year in which the first of these rare Mules was discovered, as well as the first date in the Sacagawea dollar series." http://stacksbowers.com/Auctions/AuctionLot.aspx?LotID=370663

Christian

 

Washington State quarter was minted in 2007.

 

The article says, "with a Washington state quarter", not necessarily the Washington state quarter minted in 2007. Could have been any one of the 2000 released state quarters.

 

Thank you BU and others. I misinterpreted the the original quote, which is easy enough to do.

 

Then they should have stated.....'State quarter'.....

 

I had that coin in hand in 2009 at the PAN show.A pretty cool error. I "passed" (lol) at the price of $100,000 back then,I am shocked that it sold for that much more in such a short time.

100K was the dealer price, & the public asking price at that time was $115K as I recall from the conversation.

 

Nice money if you can get it. ...... and someone got it!

 

That is a cool mule, wish we had a photo of it.

 

This is a new high for these mules which typically went for between 60 and 70 grand back in the day.

Oh yeah, they were all found in circulation from what I understand.

 

Larger photos of the sale coin (hopefully)

 

For a while, I remember reading that one collector owned like 80% of the known specimens. For some reason, my brain is telling me it was someone in either Texas or California. Anyway, with someone stock-piling the errors, it drives up the prices for any others left out there. Can someone chime in here with whether they remember hearing this also?

At any rate, it is a very cool error -- but one that I can't really understand how it would "accidentally" happen. I mean, how does one change out the reverse die but forget the obverse die on a press?? Very odd.

 

I remember reading an article that one of the US Mint employee who did that goes to Jail. And it is Not Accidentally minted.