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The fascination collectors have for error coins and notes
I first became
interested in error coins in my teens in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when I
started noticing that some of the coins I found in circulation were
“different.” When I subscribed to Coin
World about 1970, I immediately gravitated to the Collectors’ Clearinghouse
column, which often featured errors and die varieties and coins that had damage
or alterations that looked like errors, at least to an untrained eye. When I
received the latest issue of the newspaper in the mail each week, I always
turned to the Clearinghouse page first to see what new find was being reported.
My eyes were
certainly untrained then, but through the Clearinghouse column I gradually
learned about the errors I was finding, including pieces struck on incomplete
planchets, coins with laminations, coins with die chips and die cracks, and
other usually minor pieces. I never found anything especially rare or valuable.
Well, that’s not exactly accurate.
I found that
the information provided by the Clearinghouse editors — Jim Johnson, Ed
Fleischmann, Tom DeLorey — was invaluable. They taught me the minting process
and what could happen went something went wrong in any of the many steps
involved in the production of a coin. Furthermore, that education helped me in
1976 to land my first job with Coin
World, as assistant editor in the Clearinghouse department. I had some
skill as a writer and some knowledge of coins, including errors.
Today, I still
find error coins and notes interesting, and I enjoy writing about them. You may
notice the occasional online-exclusive articles I write about such great pieces
as a mated pair of Proof Jefferson 5-cent coins or a note with mismatched serial
numbers. Readers seem to like those kinds of articles as well, based on the
number of views or comments registered at our website and Facebook page, and in
the email and phone calls I regularly receive from collectors who think (hope!)
that they have found a rare error.
For those of
you reading this, do you like errors? Do you collect them? What is your
favorite error? Let me know.