GTG Silver Eagle ASE Error

Dave, have you read the actual letter from the mint to which you refer ? It was written about 1 month shy of 20 years ago - Feb. 1987. And yeah, it answers a lot of questions. Like these sanding disk, and the error coins that go along with them, have been known since 1986 when the ASE's were first produced. And given whom the letter from the Treasury is addressed to, I think we can safely assume they were written about in the numismatic press that long ago as well. And again, in 2003.

Anyway, here's some links for those with an interest.

First the letter, it can be found on page 77 of the pdf found here -

http://books.monetonos.ru/numi3mati...agazine/Mint Error News Magazine issue 17.pdf

An article found in Mint Error News from 2003 -

http://minterrornews.com/discoveries-7-20-04-$1_silver_eagle_mated_pair.html


Another article from NGC dated in 2015, but having to do with a 1986 ASE struck through one of these sanding disk -

https://www.ngccoin.com/news/article/4816/NGC-Grades-Dramatic-Error-1986-Silver-Eagle/


Now all of that said, back when this subject was first discussed here on this forum I expressed my doubts about the authenticity of all these sanding disks that are showing up. The fact that they are produced by the mint cannot be denied, there are a couple where the struck through coin and the accompanying disk are together. And the struck through coins, well they obviously exist. But what I have my doubts about is that so many of these disks are showing up - now. And reproducing them, well as I said before, it can be done easily enough. And proving that one (a disk) is a counterfeit, I don't think that CAN be done.

If you read the letter it is stated flat out that the coins produced when these disk are used to resurface ASE dies are destroyed, by the mint, as are the disk themselves. But obviously some did escape the mint, one of which was discovered just last year (see the NGC article linked above). The question is did enough of these (disks) escape the mint to account for all of those that are showing up now. Personally, I doubt it very strongly. And given that it is almost certainly impossible to tell a genuine mint produced disk from a counterfeit disk - well I sure as heck wouldn't be buying one !

The struck through coins on the other hand, yeah, they'd be a neat and highly collectible error. But there aren't many of them around.

 

Not my point. If you look, she worked at Coin World at the time. So you can pretty much bet there was an article about it in Coin World back then.