The U.S. Mint has released a statement regarding what some are calling ?upside-down? errors on the Washington presidential dollar coins.
?It has come to the attention of the United States Mint that some people are offering to sell so-called George Washington Presidential $1 ?error? coins with ?upside-down? edge-lettering on on-line auction sites,? said a mint spokesperson. ?These coins are not ?error? coins. The Presidential $1 coins are inscribed on the edge without regard to their ?heads? or ?tails? orientation. The edge-incused inscriptions on Presidential $1 coins are the year of minting or issuance, ?E Pluribus Unum,? ?In God We Trust? and the mint mark.?
The spokesperson went on to provide a description of the minting process of the coins.
?The United States Mint incuses these inscriptions on the edge of each coin at the second step of a two-step coining process,? said the spokesperson. ?In the first step, the blanks are fed into a coining machine which impresses the obverse and reverse designs onto the coins, and dispenses the coins into a large bin. In the second step, the bin is transported to the edge-incusing machine, into which the coins are fed at random, without regard to their ?heads? or ?tails? orientation. Therefore, statistically, approximately one-half of the coins produced will have edge-lettering oriented toward the ?heads? side (obverse), and approximately one-half of the coins will have the edge-incused inscriptions oriented toward the ?tails? side (reverse).?
