News

Intentional Errors

One of the most controversial categories of U.S. coins are mint errors. Many dealers and collectors, as well as coin auction houses, buy, sell, trade and auction many rare, exotic and unique major mint errors. Obviously, some of these defy logic and were intentionally created and taken out of the Mint.

In the early 2000's, a group of several hundred U.S. error coins were found in a safe-deposit box. Fred Weinberg purchased this group which included coins struck for proof sets and also coins struck for circulation. This group was auctioned by the California State Controller's Office of Unclaimed Property. The U.S. Secret Service inspected and released this collection to the State of California determining that it was legal to own. The State of California then auctioned the collection and the rest is history.

Another example of U.S. error coins escaping the Mint occurred in the 1970's. A hoard of proof error coins were smuggled out of the San Francisco Mint inside the oil pans of forklifts that were being serviced outside of the Mint. This topic was discussed in the June 6, 2022 Issue of Coin World, which covered Fred Weinberg's account of this story. The Coin World Managing Editor concluded:

Obviously, the marketplace accepts these coins, and some collectors are happy paying thousands of dollars for coins that show every indication of having been created through illegal means.

In Episode 11 of the PCGS video series Slab Lab, Seth Chandler interviews Fred Weinberg. In part 2 of the interview, Fred explains in detail why mint errors that are decades old are not recovered by the U.S. Mint. Fred's recollection of conversations in his office with the Chief of the U.S. Mint Police are extremely insightful and explain why the Mint doesn't attempt to recover error coins from decades ago.

Unique GOLD Buffalo Sells For $400,000

(Long Beach, California) June 29, 2022 - A Unique GOLD Buffalo Nickel has been sold by Mike Byers Inc for $400,000 to the JDG Trust, owner of several #1 ranked PCGS registry sets of Buffalo Nickels. Below is a link to the Mint Error News article on this Unique GOLD Buffalo Nickel:

minterrornews.com/news-6-29-22-unique-gold-buffalo-sells.html

Publisher and Editor of Mint Error News
Magazine & Website: minterrornews.com

Mike Byers is the Publisher and Editor of Mint Error News. Consultants to Mint Error News are numismatic experts recognized worldwide including Heritage Auctions, Ron Guth, Marc Crane, Andy Lustig, Saul Teichman, Michael Faraone, Steven Contursi, Jeff Ylitalo, and Fred Weinberg (retired).

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Mike Byers was the featured author in the October 9, 2009 issue of The Coin Dealer Newsletter (Vol. XXXIV No. 10) with a front-page article on mint errors.