I'm new to CT and it appears my first attempt failed. So here goes again. I just examined 200 2009 P Native American $1 coins from the direct ship program and found a lot of what appear to be errors. Of the 200, 31.5% contained letters, numbers and stars on the edges that don't belong there. Most of the letters and numbers are "raised" as opposed to the recessed ones that are a normal part of the coin. It also appears that many of these have been partially removed by polishing or grinding. Some have extra letters, numbers, and/or stars. Some of the letters and numbers are upside down and/or backwards. One has upside down O,L and U between the end of UNUM and 2 of the date. Some of the "error" letters/numbers/stars are overstruck with the characters that belong on the coin. One has the "E" from UNITED (judging by the font) struck on the edge. One has what appears to be part of the "L" from LIBERTY struck on the edge. Two non-edge errors: Both have added material from what may be a die chip. One has added material above the lowest leg of the "E" in UNITED. One has added material above the bottom tail of the "S" in STATES. Has anyone else seen similar coins?
This is just a guess without seeing the coin but the raised letters might just be damage from hitting another coin. The recessed letter on the other coin transfers to your coin as a raised letter. These coins are bagged and bounced around alot before they are put into rolls.
That would explain most of these since letters and numbers would also transfer backwards and/or upside down depending on the contact position. Since stars are symetrical they would transfer as a mirror image and possibly rotated, which is the case. I'm still working on the photos. It's going to be a little tricky getting a good image since I'm dealing with the edge of the coins.
I'm still working on getting detailed photos, but I have a new wrinkle to throw out. Some of the coins have the "normal" characters struck over the "error" characters. This would indicate that the "error" characters were struck into the edges before the final strike. Some examples: A star struck over a backwards "E". The "9" is struck over a star. MM is struck over a star. This makes me wonder if all the "errant" characters were on the edges before the final strike of the edges. More food for thought.....
I finally got some decent photos of these coins. There are a lot of them so I picked 5 of the most representative. I posted them in my album titled 2009 Native American errors.
That fits with what Pyrbob said earlier. It's hard to see in the photos, but the three edge shots have the final strike character over those that aren't a normal part of the coin. Any idea how that happens?
