To many people, a distorted letter or smudge on a penny is considered damaged pocket change. However, to others known as “error hunters,” these small imperfections can be worth thousands.
Despite the official efforts of the mints to produce coins with complete precision, there is a group of people who seek out errors in these attempts at precision. These people are referred to as error collectors, and they spend hours examining the coins through various types of magnifying glass devices to find the mistakes in the minting process.
There are numerous examples of minting errors within coins, but a few of these classic types of errors help to drive the coin collector market.
Doubled Dies: These errors happen when the metal die is misaligned during its manufacture; this causes the letters, dates, or profiles to be doubled on each minted coin. The most famous of these errors occurred with the 1955 Doubled Die Lincoln cent, which featured the word “LIBERTY” and the date as if it were a three-dimensional object. These coins can sell for five-figure sums.
Planchet errors happen before the coin is even minted. These errors can include clipping a blank metal disc, striking it off-centre, or feeding it into the wrong minting machine altogether. For Coin Dealers UK, visit https://www.gmcoins.co.uk/
Die Cracks and Cuds: As steel dies age under high pressure, they fracture. Thin cracks in the steel die leave “cracks” in the coins that are produced with that die. Also, if the die breaks at the edge, it produces a small piece of metal called a “cud.
While some might believe that error hunters only collect coins for their potential value, the truth is that the majority of these collectors are motivated by the hunt itself. These people purchase boxes of coins from banks that have not been opened since the initial delivery of the currency. They then spend hours in the dead of night searching through the rolls of coins to find the errors. The effort required of these people to participate in this hobby shows their deep passion for the hobby as well as their ability to focus on specific tasks.
Similarly, while error hunting may seem unrelated to manufacturing economics, it is in fact needed in the field of coin manufacturing. While flaws within other manufactured goods result in those goods being rendered useless, flaws in coins are a part of their history and contribute to their value as collectibles.