Black-eyed Grant cause explained

The black-eyed Grant dollar coin mystery is solved.

Reader Richard Stachowski sent in images of a 2011-P Ulysses S. Grant dollar for the June 21 issue of Numismatic News that presented us with a mystery that I thought might be a good-sized die break, or maybe die clash marks below Grant’s right eye.

As it turned out, Stachowski was a local collector who met me at a coin show a week later with four of the 40 or so pieces that he found in a box.

All of his coins sported a Strike-Through error in that area. Of the four specimens I examined, I could see that the offending debris that fell into the dies moved ever so slightly for each strike. There was also a tiny bit of strike through below Grant’s ear. I photographed one example and show images of it here.

Strike-Through errors range from minor ones that result from a clogged die that might obliterate a single character to dramatic examples such as those struck through cloth, or a feeder finger.

While the one shown here is not on the major end of the spectrum, it is certainly interesting that Stachowski found 40 of them in a box of 1,000 coins.