Market Analysis: Coveted 1976 Bicentennial error coins
- Published: Oct 14, 2021, 9 AM

Errors on 1776-1976 dual-dated coins struck to celebrate America’s Bicentennial are especially popular.
Stack’s Bowers Galleries offered a 1976-D Washington quarter dollar Aug. 19 that was an obverse die cap error. Graded Mint State 67 by Numismatic Guaranty Co., it realized $2,880.
Well-centered, it measured nearly 4 millimeters in height. The description explained, “This beautiful Superb Gem obverse die cap was created when the planchet was fed into the press prior to another struck coin being ejected. Secondly, the newly fed planchet was struck, and adhered to the die for several subsequent strikes, sharpening the obverse impression and softening the brockage impression on the reverse.”
A few lots later, a 1976-D Kennedy half dollar obverse die cap graded MS-67 by NGC sold for $3,600, with the auctioneer writing, “The reverse acquired a brockage from the obverse of a previously struck Kennedy half dollar, which is broad and distended but shows a full portrait, part of the motto IN GOD WE TRUST, and even a rather sharp D mintmark.”
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