Yeah they did Conder. Out of the 10 that were known I think only 4 are still in private hands. It was all reported in Coin World several years ago.
the Coinworld magazine I have says that Mint workers were arrested and fined for taking the coins and selling them. Only two coins have been exempt from being confiscated.
My understanding is that about a dozen were given out to a few Congressmen. Were these wrongly/illegally given out?
No, not at all. The mint does this kind of thing all the time. And as I recall, it was a dozen that were not turned back in to the mint.
Doug, I guess I'm not understanding. Did they hand them out and then recall them? Seems like if they legitimately gave some out, then those few would be legal to at least own.
Only two may be exempt, but as far as I know none of them have ever been confiscated. In fact I believe ten of the known specimens are all in one collection. The owner actively tracked down and purchased every one he could and paid tens of thousands of dollars for them. He said he had no intention of turning them over and like I said as far as I know the government has not come after them. Now if he ever puts them up for sale they may intervene.
They gave examples of the aluminum cents to some members of Congress so they could examine them. This was an experiemental coin, it was up to Congress to approve them so they wanted to look at them first. The Congressmen were supposed to turn the coins back in after examining them. Supposedly, all but 12 of the Congressmen did turn them back in. The one example in the ICG slab, that was given to a Capitol Policeman by one of the Congressmen as he walked out of the Capitol Building that day.
I had to go look it up to make sure. I was wrong. While they have the right to confiscate the coins, they have not done so. But Tommy Bolack only owns 8 of the 10 known to exist. The other 2 are the ones that the govt. admits entered circulation legally, each is owned by a different person. You can read it here, it's part of the Congressional Record now. http://www.scvhistory.com/scvhistory/signal/coins/files/071906-deisher.pdf