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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Conder101, post: 799026, member: 66&quot;]Yes the dies are gone, and the reason they are gone is because mint employees used to make restrikes and sold them for their own benefit.&nbsp; (See US Mint and Coinage by Taxay, the chapter &quot;A workshop for their own gain.&quot;)&nbsp; Sometimes it was the employees, more often it was the mint director and his cronies.&nbsp; They would restrike rare pieces desired by collectors and then sell the restrikes as originals.&nbsp; Mint Director Snowden had a fascination for medals coins and tokens related to George Washington, so he used to have restrikes of rarities, patterns, and mules made up so he could trade them for rare specimens of Washington pieces that were not in the Mint&#039;s collection.&nbsp; They made up the Class III restrike 1804 dollars and sold them with letters of authenticity as being original coins struck in the year 1804!</p><p><br /></p><p>It was because of these abuses that Superintendent Linderman ordered all of the old dies and hubs destroyed (after a few specimens of each were struck off for himself) and that in the future all of the dies would be destroyed at the end of the year.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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