Page 218 of the Red Book 2006 edition shows: 1776-1976, Silver Clad, Variety 2...... no mintage.. no price. I thought all Silver was minted in San Francisco. Is this some one of kind bizzare oddity, or is there a Silver Bicentennial-P Ike Variety 2, floating somewhere outside my collection? Thanks,
1776-1976 ONE DOLLAR - BICENTENNIAL Mintage: Circulation strikes: 117,337,000 Proofs: 4 Notes: Four three-piece sets (Quarter Dollar, Half Dollar, and Dollar) were struck as Proofs but without mintmarks. One set went to then-President Gerald Ford, another to the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission administrator, John W. Warner, another to Treasury Secretary William E. Simon, and the other to Gerald Ford's appointment secretary, Anne L. Armstrong. OK.. sorry to bother.. a little bit of searching left me with this, and with that.. this particular variant is effetively wiped off my list Unless of course one of the above individuals could use a very crispy "TWENTY DOLLAR BILL" <snap snap> for theirs..
Problem is those four coins were type I not type II. They were "prototype" pieces struck before the production strikes began in 1975. Since the Type II didn't come until later after the production strikes had been made for awhile they would not have been Type II coins. There is also some question as to whether or not they were silver clad. Some have said that they were, others who have seen them say they were copper-nickel. Just checked Breen, and he lists them as being type I and he didn't know if they were silver or coppernickel. He DOES list a single specimen with a type II reverse in silver clad that was found in a cash register. I may be able to find out some more about that one because he lists its sales records and I know one of the people on the list.
Ok, talked with the former owner of the Type II rev piece. He confirms that it was definitely a type II rev and it was a silver clad proof. It is still unique. I can understand why the type I pieces were struck but I have no idea why the type II piece would have been made. The coin had already been introduced to the public and there were no more "events". The only thing that makes any sense would be a "pattern" piece to show what the revised lettering would look like. But in that case why was it struck in silver clad? As a pattern it would have been struck in Philadelphia, and they would have had to have had a prook silver planchet shipped to them from San Francisco to strike it. Why not just use a copper nickel planchet that they had available by the millions?
Actually there are errors in the Red Book as in any pulication with thousands of factual entries. I just sent 2 pages of such errors in the Red Book to Whitman Publishing and received a sort of thank you from them. Possibly when such errors, descripencies are found if everyone sent such things to Whitman, the Red Book would become and even greater book for coins than it already is.
