Two more Presidential errors ID

If you are one of those folks from Michigan who joined in on the treasure hunt for 2007 Philadelphia-minted Adams Presidential dollars with double edge lettering and smooth edges, but avoided searching rolls or boxes of Denver coins ? you might have made a big mistake. If you gave up after it seemed like all the Adams dollars were searched and didn?t bother with any of the Presidential dollars to follow, you might have made yet another big mistake.

A Michigan collector, who prefers to remain anonymous, searched Denver dollars and ended up finding two of the rarest Presidential dollar errors reported so far. His finds include a Denver version of a 2007 Adams dollar with a double-edge inscription (loosely referred to by most as double edge lettering) and a 2007 Madison dollar with the edge inscription completely missing (referred to by collectors as ?smooth edge?). Numismatic Guarantee Corporation of Sarasota, Fla., certified both coins.
While most folks avoided the Denver boxes of Adams dollars, our anonymous friend checked everything that came into his possession despite the fact that logic seemed to suggest that it was probably going to be a waste of time. He said that he did not keep count of how many Denver boxes he searched and could only say that just one box yielded anything of significant interest, which was the single double edge inscription error shown in this report. He said it was found sometime in early July 2007.

According to the NGC population report, a total of three of the double edge inscription errors for the Denver Adams dollar have been graded, which includes the one featured here. Two were described as ?overlapping? (both sets of edge letting running in the same direction) and one ?inverted? (the sets of lettering running in opposite directions from each other). His coin was the finest graded of the three, a NGC MS-66, and is of the ?overlapping? type.

In addition to checking both Philadelphia and Denver boxes of Adams dollars, the anonymous man decided to search for errors on the Thomas Jefferson and James Madison dollars that followed. He found nothing on the Jefferson dollars but got lucky in a box of the Philadelphia Madison dollars. He said that on Nov. 16, 2007, in the first box of Madison dollars that he checked, he found a ?plain edge? error in the tenth roll. He searched 14 other boxes with no success. The plain- edge coin was sent to NGC on Dec. 1, 2007, and returned to him Dec. 14.

Double edge inscription errors have been found so far on both Washington and Adams dollars. They are the result of coins that have been previously edge-marked being run through the Schuler edge-lettering machine a second time in error. They are not doubled dies.

To date, only a handful is known on the Washington dollar, with at least one identified as a Philadelphia Mint issue. Additionally, tens-of-thousands of double edge lettered errors were found on the Philadelphia issue of the Adams dollar. Most were found in boxes released from southeastern Michigan banks.

Presidential dollars with completely missing edge inscriptions have been found on all the Presidential issues released in 2007, but not for all mints. Smooth-edge Washington dollars were found in several areas of the country by the tens-of-thousands. Most came out of Florida. A smaller number were reported found in California to Chicago in boxes containing Denver issues. Since they have no mintmark inscribed on their edge, they are generally considered the same as those from Philadelphia with none of the grading services differentiating one from the other.

The Adams dollar was released next and virtually upon release, thousands of plain-edge errors were found in southeastern Michigan from boxes containing Philadelphia coins.

The Jefferson dollar followed with just one specimen being found weeks after the issue was released to the public. Three weeks later hundreds more were reported and sent to the Professional Coin Grading Service for grading. Until recently, the population of these coins was 301 representing one sent in by me, and another 300 by another submitter. That number has jumped to 501 in checking the PCGS population report at the time of this writing.

The Madison dollar plain edge does not yet show up on the NGC population report. Scott Schechter, director of marketing at NGC, checked with both Dave Camire and Rick Montgomery to learn if any others had come in and said that both gentlemen stated that only the one had come in so far.

PCGS has not yet responded to an inquiry on how many of each of these two errors may have been certified by them.

Ken Potter is the official attributer of world doubled dies for the Combined Organizations of Numismatic Error Collectors of America and for the National Collectors Association of Die Doubling. He also privately lists other collectible variety types on both U.S. and world coins in the Variety Coin Register. More information on either of the clubs, or how to get a coin listed in the Variety Coin Register may be obtained by sending a long, self-addressed envelope with 58 cents postage to P.O. Box 760232, Lathrup Village, MI 48076, or by contacting him via e-mail at KPotter256@aol.com. An educational image gallery may be viewed on his Web site at www.koinpro.com.