Five Facts

Gerald Tebben goes behind the scenes and explores many offbeat trails in bringing to the forefront the long-lost information that makes coins so special in "Coin Lore."

View one of our blogs:

Worthless cents and a partial country

This high-grade Ameri. cent sold for $440,625 last year.

Images courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

This high-grade Ameri. cent sold for $440,625 in 2014.

Images courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

In the early days of the United States Mint, dies were created by hand using punches to place design elements, letters and numbers. In some cases, mint workers grabbed the wrong punch or failed to properly space the lettering.

Large cents produced from late 1793 to 1807 expressed the value as a fraction 1/100 on the reverse, except when it didn’t.

In 1801 a die cutter botched three reverse dies. All expressed the value as 1/000 – zip, zero, nothing. He caught the error on one of the three dies, punching a 1 over the first zero in the denominator, the lower set of numerals in the fraction. His third die was spectacularly bad. In addition to the nonsensical value, he used two I’s for a U in the word United and left off part of the wreath – the central design element.

Because dies were expensive, even bungled ones were used to produce coins until they wore out. One of them was still going strong in 1803.

Coins struck by the bungled dies tend to be worth more than regular coins, especially in higher grades.

In 1793, the engraver producing the first die for the first cent abbreviated America as AMERI.

Why remains a mystery. There was plenty of space for the last two letters. Some believe the engraver thought the completed word would end too close to the next word – UNITED in UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. The late researcher Walter Breen speculated it was done on purpose, somehow in sympathy with the unfinished pyramid on the Great Seal of the United States.

Whatever the reason, only about 7,000 were struck before the die broke, making a rarity for the start of the now 222-year-old 1-cent series.

Less is more when it comes to the nation’s first cent. The Ameri. coin catalogs for $10,000 in Good condition in Coin World Coin Values. Coins with the whole word catalog for $7,500.

Gold American Eagle bullion sales in July more than double June's total [INFOGRAPHIC]

1933 gold double eagle case continues as court vacates earlier ruling that awarded coins to family

Silver American Eagle bullion sales climb for third straight month [INFOGRAPHIC]

Here's what the West Point Mint's bullion storage vault looks like

Keep up with all of CoinWorld.com's news and insights by signing up for our free eNewsletters, liking us on Facebook, and following us on Twitter. We're also on Instagram!