1999 Prototype 2000 P Sac. Dollar aka "Circulated Cheerios Dollar".

He was the person who discovered that variety

 

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CaptHenway.. Thanks for the heads up on the 5,500 fine print... I will look on my orig. boxes for that note. After fifty-five years of coin collecting, I have decided to focus on the Cheerio Dollar. I am still learning a lot of interesting facts.

Kuriosu.... I agree, this coin has had a long rough 22 year circulated life. Whizzed, or not, it is a very difficult item to find in circulation. I am looking at the surviving numerical rarity vice the grading or conditional rarity. Regarding pictures, I am retired and avoid doing things that frustrate me.... like taking pictures.

Everyone, please, help. I am working on putting together the "world's best or most-complete" collection of Cheerio Dollars to hand down to my grandkids so they can crack open the slabs and spend the dollars locally. It happens.

The key item(s) will be a $100 certificate and a top pop MS 68 PLUS. I would also like to have the bot pop graded dollars. Any info on the ownership of these items will be appreciated. I hope there are a few "uncashed" $100 certificates still in circulation.

 

Well you've got about 10 years on me and my collecting

I've been saying for years that I would love to find out the actual numbers of these Sac pattern coins and to find out if there are some little hoards out there lol.

I've also been asking around for years, including in some forums and shows to see if I can find someone who was actually involved in the coin packaging at General Mills HQ back in the day. Because it sure sounds like a bunch of the office staff were involved in vacuum packing both the dollars and the Cheerios pennies. My gut tells me that there are some really fun stories to uncover as well as some stashes...I picture some office staff smoking cigarettes and bare-handed packaging these coins lol!!!

I don't own any Cheerios dollars but I do have a few really nice original Cheerios pennies (unfortunately not the one I got myself from the box) and my favorite is this one...which apparently has the fingerprints from some clerk or someone who was packaging the pennies at General Mills lol!

Hey @dennis5151 see if you can figure out who the heck touched my Cheerios penny?!

 

I don't have the reference. But, there is a die marker on the Lapel that will confirm that your 2000 cent is a WAM.

 

I've wondered about this for these pennies.
I remember another Cheerios coin thread where it was pondered if someone has ever gotten one of these slabbed with dual attribution...Cheerios and a variety on one label?!

If you can point me in the right direction to identify the WAM maybe I can be the first to get the dual attribution just for fun I did get plenty of coins graded this year already! I didn't realize there was a marker on the obverse of the wide AMs...

 

It's posted somewhere on CT. I would start a search for cheerios WAM cent.

 

The photos are still inadequate to be sure, but I think that the coin has enough of a chance to justify sending it in to a TPG. I would recommend that he use ANACS.

Yes, I am the one that first reported the different reverse. I saw a coin with the pattern reverse at a press conference in Chicago in October of 1999, and when the coins came out I wrote a story in COINage about the reverse being different than the one I saw at the press conference.

Somewhere before 2010 I wrote to General Mills to try to find out information about the dollar program. They replied that nobody there knew anything about it.

TD

 

Now that's really interesting...So you never were even able to find out who was in charge of things for the promotion at General Mills?! Now I'm thinking maybe I should try to connect with a higher up at General Mills and tell them a fun story of attempted research?!

Having been a Marketing Director...I'd have to imagine it was a combination of Marketing Director, COO and the Board of Directors at the time...I'd guess it was the actual marketing department sitting around vacuum packaging the coins maybe even turning it into a week of snacks and treats for the packaging team!

 

It's hard to imagine the internal marketing dept sitting around packaging all of the dollars and especially cents. General Mills does lots of packaged giveaways in cereals. I would think they would sub it out to a contractor like they probably did with the rest of the free trinkets found in cereal boxes.

Even if they did do it internally, why not utilize the department that handled all of the other giveaways. It seemed like every kids cereal had a giveaway. I don't think the marketing department did all that work.

 

Certainly possible...but also likely that it was actually entirely done by a marketing agency...and I'm still picturing the same scenario lol. I've been there too.
Over all it wasn't that many to complete...also it was a custom designed packaging that General Mills probably set up temporarily in one of their own facilities...or ordered a heat sealable package design they specified with an order to a European or Asian company or affiliate...

 

@CaptHenway too...

Well here's an article that likely mentions exactly who the agency was in 1999...but I'm not quite ready to renew my subscription to Ad Age just to read the whole article since I've been out of that particular career for a couple decades lol.

General Mills | Ad Age
https://adage.com › AdAge Encyclopedia
Sep 15, 2003 — Blackett and its successor agency, Dancer-Fitzgerald-Sample, continued to handle the Betty Crocker brand until General Mills moved it to Batten,...
https://adage.com/article/adage-encyclopedia/general-mills/98669

 

Interesting. Your observation secured a well-deserved recognition and fame in the world of numismatics.

I emailed the US Mint concerning the promotion. Specifically, I asked how many coins were normally made in a test run on a prototype die. They replied there are no records.

I read the fine print on the side of the box. 5,500 is the stated number. I read a person could mail in a request for a "game piece". If the promoters expected a lot of entries, the 5500 number makes sense.

Regardless of what occurred, one fact stands out, there are relative few graded Cheerios Dollars with the 1999 prototype tails. Even fewer graded non-prototype tail.

There is no way to tell how many have been cross slabbed between graders. I know of three.

I subscribe to the theory a lot of circulated items were sent overseas or are now sitting in bins at the US mint to be melted.

 

Just keep it Anecdotal

 

Remember...I was in lead marketing for a loooong time lol...would you like the anecdotal evidence of things to sound positive or negative?

 

If anybody researches it, be sure to post your results here.

I suspect that even when I asked their reaction was something like "Gee, this is ancient history! Why should we care, or remember?" After all, they are not coin people. To them this was just another giveaway widget.

 

The pieces sent to General Mills were not a test run. I believe that it was the 5,500 pieces needed for the promotion. However, it is known that some coins found in the original promotion packages do not have the prototype reverse. It is also known that when the Sacagawea dollars first came out in quantity, a lot of them had spotting problems.

I suspect, just as a guess, that General Mills rejected some of the 5,500 coins due to spotting and requested replacements, which came from the normal dies. If this happened, the rejects may have been returned to the Mint and melted, or they may have just been released as normal coins. Remember, at the time nobody knew there was anything different about them.

After the prototype reverse was confirmed, I happened to meet Tom Rogers, the Mint Engraver responsible for the reverse design, at an ANA convention. He told me that while he was still fiddling with the reverse design the Mint's Marketing Dept. worked out the deal with General Mills, and the Marketing Department had the Coining Dept. run off a batch of coins from the latest design dies for shipment to General Mills. Those dies had the designs used back in April or May to strike a few dozen 22kt gold pieces (on gold Half Ounce American Eagle planchets) for launch into space.

The Coining Dept. did not know, or care, that Rogers was still fiddling with the designs. Rogers did not know that the Coining Dept. had struck coins for release to General Mills. Rogers said that because he wanted the eagle to more closely resemble a Bald Eagle, he took out the detailing of the tail feathers to make them plain because in Heraldry a plain, blank space is representative of white.

(Take a look at the shield on a Draped Bust, Heraldic Eagle Dollar. The horizontal lines at the top represent the color blue. The multi-lined vertical stripes represent the color red. The plain spaces between the red lines represent the color white.)

The only detail he left in was the center spine in the central tail feather, just for artistic purposes. Instead of leaving it raised he depressed it, again for artistic purposes. He also fiddled with the detailing in the wings, but I do not know why.

Once he was done he ordered the production of Master Dies and Hubs and Working Dies and Hubs and mass production of the coins for release starting January 1, 2000. The Fed was not anxious to be bothered with them because of concern over the Y2K situation, so the Mint's Marketing Dept. worked out a deal with Walmart for them to buy 100,000,000 pieces to give out in change starting in January. I got some at Walmart and noticed the design change. The Fed started shipping them to banks in February.

TD

 

Tom, this sort of info belongs in the Numismatist for future collectors. Perhaps your first person story leading to your discovery and including the post above and other things related to the coins.

 

Thanks for the cool update. I now understand a lot more of why and how.

I hope the grading companies will someday recognize the circulated dollars with fine detail as a "1999 prototype of the 2000 P and 2000 W Sac. $1".

 

They certainly should. I would be happy to assist any TPG you send it to in attributing it. Tell whoever you send it to to contact Tom DeLorey concerning it.

 

IF this piece checks out and gets certified I would be happy to write it up and include the backstory.