HIGHLAND MINT STRIKES SUPER BOWL 50 COINS

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V19 2016 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 19, Number 5, January 31, 2016, Article 37

American football fans are in limbo awaiting the annual King of Contests, the Super Bowl. In the meantime numismatists can enjoy this article from Florida Today about the making of the game's commemorative coin at the Highland Mint in Melbourne, FL. -Editor

Friday was a big day for the Highland Mint. You could call it the "Super Bowl" of workdays. Why? Because the manufacturer of the coin flipped prior to the start of the NFL's championship game was stamped, packaged and sent to the NFL for Super Bowl 50.

On Feb. 7, the Carolina Panthers will square off against the Denver Broncos in San Francisco in the Golden Anniversary of the Super Bowl. And that shiny, blingy one-ounce gold coin will determine which team will have the option to either kick off or receive the ball to start the game. Kickoff is set for 6:30 p.m.

1. "It's the first year that the Super Bowl logo is going to be heads and the side with the team logos is going to be tails," said Michael Kott, head of the Highland Mint. "Since it's the 50th Super Bowl, that's how the NFL decided to do it."

2. "In the past 49 years, it's been heads 24 times (meaning tails has come up 25 times.) So this year, based on statistics, it should be heads."

Fun fact: Four out of the past six teams that called the coin toss correctly ended up winning the Super Bowl, Kott added.

3. "It's the biggest prop bet they have," according to Timmy Vee of Coastal Hyundai. Vee, who is a friend of Kott's, has stamped serial No. 1 on the Super Bowl coin for the past 10 years. "There's over 350 prop bets on the Super Bowl, and the coin toss is the biggest one out of all of them. There's a lot of money made and lost when that thing flies up into the air."

4. "We make 10,000 (coins). The one with serial No. 1 is the one that's actually flipped at the game," according to Kott. That coin is then sent to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.

5. "We also make a coin numbered with 0 on it," Kott said. "That they keep in case the game goes into overtime to see who's going to kick off. Luckily, that hasn't been used yet."

Besides making the flip coin for the start of the game, the Highland Mint also make a lot of products commemorating the two teams in the Super Bowl. One of the product lines is for the Super Bowl champions. About 30 minutes after the game ends, the Highland Mint starts production. "We already have the dyes made for the Carolina Panthers Super Bowl champions and the Denver Broncos Super Bowl Champions. Obviously, we use the one that wins, the other one gets destroyed," said Michael Kott, head of the Highland Mint.

There's the word "dyes" again, when "dies" is intended. This happens a lot when the popular press discusses numismatics. Of course in centuries past, "dye" was the much more common spelling. So everything old is new again, I guess.

Of course, this item is actually a medal and not a coin, but everybody is going to call it a coin. "Medal toss" just doesn't have the same ring. And nobody's going to call "Obverse!" or "Reverse!". Buy hey, why not yell "Obverse!" instead of "Omaha!" just once...

With the rule change over which side is "heads", will the officials get it right with millions of fans watching? Will sore losers protest that they should have won the call?

So, have there been any escapees from the melting pot? Surviving test strikes of the losing team's coin?

Have any of our readers been to the Pro Football Hall of Fame? How are the coins displayed? -Editor