PREV ARTICLE       NEXT ARTICLE       FULL ISSUE       PREV FULL ISSUE      

V4 2001 INDEX       E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 4, Number 30, July 22, 2001, Article 11 TWO-TAILED QUARTER AUTHENTICATED Speaking of errors, Coin World reported this week that a two-tailed U.S. quarter has been authenticated as genuine. Everything I've ever read about errors said this was an impossibility, and just last week, in an emailed response to a visitor to my web site, I stated flatly that any such piece must be a manufactured fantasy, not a product of the U.S. Mint. On the COINS mailing list Tom DeLorey wrote: "The coin has indeed been authenticated. The hub characteristics are reportedly those of the earliest clad quarters, which places it in the 1965-1974 ballpark. During the so-called coin shortage of the mid-1960's, the Mint pulled a lot of old coining equipment out of mothballs to increase production. They even pulled an 1873 coin press out of a museum to use. It is possible that some of this equipment did not have standard modern die holders, and that it would have been possible to place two obverse or two reverse dies in one press. . Also, there were a lot of deliberately created errors made in the San Francisco Assay Office in the 1970-1976 period, that were snuck out of the Mint in the oil pans of fork lift trucks. See Appendix B of the 7th Edition of the Judd pattern catalog for some of these deliberate errors. Another one was a 1970-S Proof quarter struck on a 1900 Barber quarter. I am not aware that any two-tailed coins were made by the same person who made the other errors, but it does seem plausible that it could have been." In a ripped-from-the-headlines E-Sylum exclusive, David Lange of Numismatic Guaranty Corp, which certified the coin, writes: "When NGC's mint error specialist, Dave Camire, showed me this coin raw, I just glanced at it and made a joke about it being another of the many magician's pieces and other novelty coins we receive so frequently. He insisted I take a closer look, and that's when I realized the damned thing looked real. Close inspection revealed no sign of a seam, and both the coin's weight and ring were on the money. Dave and I agreed that it is a genuine mint product. Both reverse dies were taken from the first clad hub that was used as late as 1974, but there are subtle indications that the coin was made early in the clad series. The extent and manner of die erosion is characteristic of quarters dated 1965-66 and seen only rarely on later dates. Dave Camire asked me if this could have been made at the San Francisco Mint, since the other coins in the collection that were identifiable by mint were all SF pieces. SF ceased coining at the end of March 1955. Due to the nationwide coin shortage of the early-mid 1960s, it was later reactivated. SF started producing only planchets at first, shipping these to the Denver Mint beginning in September of 1964. SF began striking dimes and quarters about a year later. It's likely that both silver and clad pieces were made there simultaneously for a short time. Normally, the die shanks were machined in such a way that they could not be mounted in the wrong position or paired to make a two-headed or two-tailed coin. My speculation is that the urgency of the coin shortage prompted some short cutting, among which was a neglect to build proper safeguards into the die shanks. So, while this dual-reverse quarter was evidently possible from a technical standpoint, I believe that the pairing of two, well-used reverse dies may have been done intentionally to create an oddity. Had the pairing occurred by accident and resulted in mass production, there would almost certainly more examples already known to the hobby."

Wayne Homren, Editor

	coinbooks.org Web

The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization 
promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org.

To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor 
at this address: whomren@coinlibrary.com

To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum