Slabbed Washington Errors Reaches 50,000

The mint spec for the diameter of the coin is 1.043 inches +/- 0.003 inches. This is a very tight spec and removal of the edge lettering requires the removal of more than 0.006 inches worth of material. This should be the first test for authenticity that anyone performs. This test should be followed up with visual inspection for evidence of plating or any other means of Adding material back to the coin to restore the diameter (including flattening the coin).

Short of measuring the diameter accurately, one is taking a risk when buying these coins. The only time one should consider that risk is if they personally know the source of the coins. Obviously a reputable third party grading service also goes a long way and that's why slabbed coins can command a certain premium (of course that last sentence was preaching to the choir)

One cannot go by weight under any circumstances. the spec for the weight is 8.1g +/- 0.3g. It has been shown repeatedly that the edge lettering can be removed with less than 0.3g of material. All a fraudster has to do is start with heavy planchets as they are sufficiently abundant.

 

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You convinced me, gatzdon. I didn't realize the diameter tolerances were that exacting. I knew the weight tolerances were no benchmark. Thanks!

 

Interesting tidbit picked up at yesterdays show. I saw probably 100 of the no letter slabbed MS65 Washington dollars. They were selling for in the neighborhood of $150-175. I talked to a few dealers who said they could buy hundreds, probably with some shopping thousands from a single source. One dealer told me that the TPG's are not publishing the real populations hoping to keep the excitement going.

Found this information rather interesting to say the least. Like I said, there were a ton of them at this show and it was not a major show by no means, maybe 30 dealers..

 

when i was a little squirt my grand dad told me, don't believe anything you hear,and only half of what you see............................he was a smart guy.............

 

one more thing......and this is only my opinion,
the fact that so many dealers had them at the show would on the outside look as though these were plentiful,but how could plentiful equate to 150-175.00 each, it can't,the reason so many dealers at shows have them is because ..."thats how they make there living" that's why coin vault and hsn and so on have them...these and other items pay there rent! just something to think about but with over 300,000,000 of these washington dollars minted....and onlly 50-60,000 or who cares maybe 100,000 without edge lettering,these are rare........i don't know what the percentage is but they only seem plentiful now because it's the hot item,once the dumpers get rid of there's they will be scarce!.and like everything...the price will go up!.....again just my opinion..

 

Has anyone actually seen a fake gw smooth rim? I've bought and sold close to 2000 pieces, all raw. And I've yet to see one that I think is not genuine. I'd be very interested in seeing any counterfeits. I'm sure there are some somewhere, but it's hard to imagine one that isn't crudely done.
tradernick

 

We already went over that. Check out the link. If you came across one of these, do you think you could tell it's not genuine?

http://www.cointalk.org/showthread.php?t=22983&highlight=mattman

 

One dealer. 2000 he has seen/dealt. Rare?

 

My definition of "rare" differs from some here.

There's many more of these errors than the total mintages of many other years of other circulated coins. What kills me is that I paid ~double for a Barber proof with a mintage of ~700 coins total, and *it's* not considered all that rare, heh. Go figure.

 

Errors of specific coins are a lot different than the total mintage of a specific coin. There is a difference.

 

Yeah, one's rare... one isn't.

Yes... it's an error, but no... it's not rare. There weren't even 18,000 proof Barber halves ever minted, let alone remaining today. The mint sells out 5,000 or 10,000 or 50,000 of various things and none of that is considered rare.

If I found one in a roll or in circ. I'd keep it in a jar, and I'm not harping on anyone for buying one (unless you were foolish enough to do it when demand was the highest and overpaid). Heck, people spend thousands of dollars on cat plates and beanie babies. I can personally think of 1,000,000 other things to spend money on than a "rare" Washington error or cat plate, but to each their own.

 

Have Hope the new John Adams comes out this month. Let the errors begin.

 

50,000 60,000 who cares at this point it really stops being rare, and starts being available for the right price, which should settle in the 40 to 50 range

 

50,000 TO 60,000 OUT OF 300,000,000 +............to me thats rare........

 

so 1,000,000 our of 3,000,000,000 would also be rare?

thats 1 million out of 3 billion ... a very smal percentage... but would still be rare to you.. at what point do you start to consider that enough is out to satisfy demand? IMHO thats what it is for the washingtons.. there are enough out to satisfy demand so price will drop.

 

good point,but how many does it take to fill the demand,these errors are getting alot of press,this kind of error gets even non- collectors excited,the point i was trying to make was 50-60,000 out of 300 million is a very small percentage..........

 

another good point!...........so who is buying these errors 24/7 for the past 7-8 weeks?
http://search-completed.ebay.com/search/search.dll?sofocus=so&sbrftog=1&from=R10&_trksid=m37&satitle=2007+washington+error&sacat=-1%26catref%3DC6&sargn=-1%26saslc%3D2&sadis=200&fpos=33706&fis=2&ftrt=1&ftrv=1&saprclo=&saprchi=&fsop=1%26fsoo%3D1&coaction=compare&copagenum=1&coentrypage=search&fgtp=

 

yeah, the coin without errors will be the moneymaker..lol