Nothing makes people look at their money like a redesign. And with each redesign we see a new round of misinformation, half truths and lies as well as the usual myths and urban legends. The latest redesign of the $5 and $10 notes caused rumors of "printing errors" (because the date of release does not correspond with the bills' Series date). Snopes sets the record straight here.
Snopes Good Thread Hobo. Snopes is great for so much more than currency and coins. Every "forwarded" email I get usually ends up at snopes because so much of it is BS. PS I do NOT work for Snopes - just really appreciate the site. clembo
Snopes is GREAT! I have used them for many years. Like you, I check the validity of a lot of stuff I get in e-mail. I also like to check Snopes before I e-mail or post something on-line so I don't embarrass myself by spreading a myth or urban legend. (I wish more people did that.)
any email i get that sounds too outrageous to be true... is usually followed up by a visit to snope... and yes, they are always posted there as being fake, false and just plainly made up! great post Hobo!
Of course, you have to check emails there even when they claim that they have already been "validated" by Snopes. I have had a series of emails lately that come with the "I've checked this on Snopes" claim in the email. When you check them yourselves, they turn out to be as false as most of the chain emails are.
two things in that snopes that standout. They generically say there are no printing errors. There are always printing errors, just none associated with engraving the wrong series date. They state that coins are dated the year they are minted. Actually, they are dated the year they are issued (many state quarters may be minted in December-January for release in February). Although, the mint bucked that trend big time in 1964 through 1967. I'm sure there are also many documented instances in the 1800's where coins were minted with a different date, but I think many of those weren't officially sanctioned by the mint.
It's a good bit more complex than that.... In the earliest years of the Mint, they usually punched the current year into the dies when they were made, but a die might well be used as long as several years later, leading to backdated coins. Later on, the regular-production coins were dated with the year of minting, but as you noted, a lot of under-the-table production of backdated coins went on, so that the Mint workers could sell them to collectors at a profit. Sometime in the mid-1800's (I forget the date), Congress finally passed a law prohibiting the Mint from making any backdated coins. Since the law didn't say anything about dating coins *ahead*, it eventually became traditional for the Mint to switch to the new year's date in mid-late December, rather than waiting for January 1 (that way, if they overestimated how many dies they'd need to finish off the old year's coinage, they'd have a couple weeks to use up the extras before December 31, after which date they couldn't legally be used). It's not a matter of issue dates, though; often some of the old-year coins remain to be paid out in the new year, and on rarer occasions the first of the new-year coins are issued while it's still December. A few exceptions to the no-backdating rule have been made since then by direct order of Congress, though. The 1964-1967 mess was one of those, but several of the commemorative coins in the '30s were also backdated, and so was at least one modern commem (the 1993 Jefferson dollar, minted 1994). In each case, Congress specifically mandated what date the Mint had to put on the coins; the Mint doesn't have authority to backdate any coins of its own volition. But in any case, "dated the year they're minted" is a good first approximation of the situation with coins--as opposed to currency, *most* of which ends up being backdated a year or two due to the series-dating method the BEP uses. I think that was the only point Snopes was trying to make....
Thanks for the clarification Numbers. You are a walking encyclopedia (whereas the rest of us just try to use a little trivia to look smart). Thanks
