A rotated reverse error 2015-W High Relief $100 gold piece has been slabbed by Numismatic Guaranty Corporation.
It is the first such error seen, but NGC expects to see more as die life for these coins is up to 500 pieces.
The coin has “medallic alignment,” which means the reverse is rotated by 180 degrees.
NGC notes that coins are normally struck so that both sides are properly oriented if the coin is flipped from top to bottom on a horizontal axis. A medallic alignment means that coins must be turned along a vertical axis for the obverse and reverse to be right side up.
Large rotations are relatively common on early U.S. coins, but modern U.S. coins with medallic alignments are exceptionally rare, NGC pointed out.
A well known example is the 1989-D Congress Bicentennial silver dollar, of which approximately 200 specimens with medallic alignments are believed to exist, and a small number of 2007 Presidential dollars are known with medallic alignment.
This article was originally printed in Numismatic News.
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