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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Kasia, post: 2896981, member: 31533&quot;]Here is my take on this, and I welcome any corrections or additional details others more knowledgeable than I can provide.</p><p><br /></p><p>According to the bits I have read, the 1955 ddo1 had one run basically, with an estimated 20-24 thousand produced. The result of one die pair. Supposedly before any employee found this happening, thousands that had been produced were already mixed in with others produced by different dies. A decision was made, possibly based on thinking a cent is a cent, and it at the time would just be another cent, as well as the time and cost to pull and destroy the combined good/bad cents to prevent them from reaching the public was more than someone wanted to be responsible for.</p><p><br /></p><p>So the decision was made not to worry about the coins produced and already mixed in with others from different dies, and to pull the bad die. Remember that at the time, error coins were not something the public was really focused on. This cent being released kind of started the ball rolling on that. It seems presumed that the coins produced but not mixed in yet were then mixed and let go to the public, but I have not found anything that says that or that says those were held back and destroyed. So that last group of coins produced may lower the total released number... which in my mind might result in estimates of maybe 3-4 up to 14 thousand surviving. The tricky part is accounting for upwards of 10 thousand or more not showing up as these were so visibly recognizable to anyone who even would glance at the obverse. They were generally held on to at that moment, so it would be expected that any not pulled might be the result of the consumer not looking at his coins, and when spending them also not seeing the obverse, etc.... Or, dropping one without noticing and by the time it was found, if that, had been so decimated. This all happened at a time when collecting pennies and dimes was pretty popular. So that is a lot of coins to never show up if they were released.</p><p><br /></p><p>One primary place these were found was in cigarette cellophane packs. Back in the fifties, it was really common to see cigarette machines, and within the economics of the times, a cent held more value so people expected to be charged in odd cents like the 23 cents it cost for a pack dispensed in a machine. But the machines were not able to receive or dispense pennies. It would be more likely the consumer would find a quarter and buy the pack with that. Each pack then had the change in the pack, and that left it up to the consumer to either pocket the change or, perhaps, if the person buying the pack was not concerned with keeping the change and did not bother with it, inadvertently leaving them in to be trashed. That possibility would work as long as the cents were not yet advertised as existing, the customers of the cigarettes were not realizing were the source was, and to that effect, enough mixing of non-doubled die cents in with the change provided that it was able to have this scenario play out. Also this would suppose that people loading the cents into a machine to go into the packs did not notice, and if the cents were sufficiently mixed with good ones would be at least plausible...</p><p><br /></p><p>Also I am considering that perhaps quite a few never made it to circulation (released by the feds) but were with groups of coins not needed and thus remained in storage, and possibly still remain in storage because when it came time to release more coins, newer stock came physically before that. Or there could be more reasons, but I don&#039;t have enough info on this part of production, recalls, etc. All I know is that they first appeared in late 1955, and I don&#039;t know even which month they were produced in. They first supposedly traded for a quarter or so, so imagine at first, the rarity was not realized. </p><p><br /></p><p>So where are all those other ones???? Did the fed actually destroy a huge number of cents not released in this and other years? Or with cents at least do mintages pretty much reflect the number needed for actual circulation?[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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