Has anyone ever seen one of these? I have a buddy that purchased this recently. I did a google search but couldn't find any photos. It appears that there were some pattern coins for this year though. These photos were taken by him, so unfortunately this is all I have.
Without even looking to see if such a thing it looks like it came straight from aliexpress. Chinese fake is my first thought.
There was a pattern design made but the mint never made any actual patterns of it. I do believe a private firm did make some though.
An informative web page: http://www.smalldollars.com/dollar/page04.html Note: "The Office of Technology completed trial strikes on three proposed versions of a small dollar coin, bearing the Liberty obverse and the new eagle reverse. One version had an 11-sided inside border. The second had a groove near the border to aid vendors to discriminate against slugging. The third version was plain. Materials other than cupronickel clad copper were given detailed consideration; however the cupronickel clad material presently used for the dime, quarter, half dollar, and dollar was judged most suitable for the proposed coin." One can only wonder if any of these "trial strikes" still exist?
Here's a scan of some photos/information on these coins from the 10/1976 issue of Coinage... The same issue also has a short article about the proposed 10-sided Ike to be issued for collectors only... would have been pretty neat!
I remember those coin proposals way back at the time. Frank Gasparro's liberty design would have been a wonderful choice for a circulating coin. Regardless, the design alone would most likely not have helped in stimulating its use in daily commerce. The result was the Anthony dollar as the alternative, the most studied failure of a coin in history, for size, color, weight and maligned for it's design choice despite the accomplishments of the great suffragist. Besides fellow collectors, Americans do not really like dollar coins.
I too remember the proposed design and thought that if any dollar coin stood a chance of circulating that would be it. When the SBA came out I was disappointed big time.
That is what was getting me here. I have seen this before and never thought these were actually struck. Wanted to confirm.