Coin collectors flip about golden goof
Mistake combines head of quarter, tail of new dollar
Thursday, June 15, 2000
Gerald Tebben
Dispatch Staff Reporter
Check your change.
A new golden coin, possibly worth as much as $100,000, has turned up in circulation.
The coin, which was struck by the Philadelphia Mint, has the obverse, or front, of a Washington quarter and the reverse of the Sacagawea dollar.
"We're on essentially a national treasure hunt,'' said Beth Deisher, editor of Coin World magazine. Coin World, published in Sidney, Ohio, broke the story in its June 26 issue, which was mailed yesterday.
The error coin is the first in the 208-year history of the mint to bear the obverse of one denomination and the reverse of another, Deisher said.
The coin does not bear a date but was minted between November, when dollar production started, and late May, when an anonymous collector plucked the pricey coin from a roll of dollars in Mountain Home, Ark.
Bowers and Merena, a Wolfeboro, N.H., coin company, will auction the coin at the American Numismatic Association annual convention in Philadelphia in August.
Christine Karstedt, Bowers vice president, said the coin's value depends on the number of others like it.
"It could bring $100,000,'' she said. Related links
Brad Baker, owner of a Cincinnati-based Web auction-advisory company, is representing the seller. The coin's owner bought 100 dollar coins from the First National Bank & Trust of Mountain Home and intended to sell them at his booth in a local flea market, Baker said.
The coin's owner, who spoke on condition on anonymity, said he fanned a roll of the coins out on his dinner table and was astounded to see George Washington's face instead of Sacagawea's.
Baker said he initially hoped to raise a few hundred dollars by auctioning the coin on the Internet site eBay but changed his mind after a dealer offered $25,000 for the piece.
The coin is unique so far, he said.
"It's a name-your-price kind of thing,'' Baker said. "I don't care if there's more found, but not till after the auction.''
The seller said one dealer, who thought the coin was a magician's trick piece created by soldering the front of a quarter to the back of a dollar, offered him $3 for the coin.
The coin has been authenticated by Numismatic Guaranty of Parsippany, N.J., and was produced when an obverse die for a quarter was accidentally mated with the reverse die for a Sacagawea dollar.
Deisher said coinage dies last for several hundred thousand impressions, so many more coins could be waiting to be found.
The Philadelphia Mint has produced all Sacagawea dollars in circulation. Error coins could be found anywhere in the country, Deisher said. "There could be one. There could be 100,000.''
The finder, who plans to attend the auction, said his good luck "is kind of like God putting fish in your net.''
But, he added, "I may be just another face in the crowd tomorrow, because someone might find another roll of the coin.''
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