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QUIDS ON THE SKIDS: ERROR POUND COINS APPEARArthur Shippee forwarded this BBC News article about the error one pound coins people are finding in circulation. -Editor
It said that a "small number of coins" were affected when they were struck at a rapid rate during production. The Royal Mint is striking 1.5 billion new 12-sided £1 coins, introduced to help crack down on counterfeiting. Out of shape versions of the coin, considered collectors' items, are appearing on internet auction sites.  Kristofer Bramwell from Kegworth in Derby tells the BBC: "I paid for my food with a £20 note and it was in the change. I received it with a pristine minted new 1 pound coin. "After getting home and eating the takeaway, I took the change out of my coat pocket and I found the badly minted pound coin. "The edge of the £1 coin is partially 12 sided and rounded where it clearly has not been pressed correctly by the machine." The article quoted Phil Mussell of Coin News, although it misspelled his name. -Editor
Philip Munsell, director of Coin News magazine, told the BBC that only a tiny minority of these new coins would be affected, but that fact made them highly collectable. "The thing about the Royal Mint is that they are very, very good with their quality control, so therefore if you have something that has passed through without being quality checked then it is likely to be collectable, it is likely to therefore be worth more than one pound," he said. To read the complete article, see:
The BBC's personal finance reporter based his story partly on a report by The Sun. David Pickup passed along that report, which has images of some of the coins. Great
headline: "Quids on the Skids". The article also bestows names on some of the errors, such as the "Polo Pound". Will the names stick in numismatic circles? -Editor
Some of the coins — supposedly the world’s most secure — appear cracked, warped or have the middle missing. Officials admitted faults had crept into the minting process.
Other flawed coins given to Sun readers are misshapen, have sections bleeding into one another or do not have key design details. The coins are meant to carry a hologram that makes them impossible to forge — but our readers found cases where this security feature was missing. Coin collector John Taylor, of Crystal Palace, South London, has a £1 with a missing centre and others with “misstrikes”. Sarah O’Donoghue, from Birmingham, said the silver middle of her £1 coin had bled into the outer gold ring, adding: “It is all melted and out of shape.”   The article reports some of these odd coins selling for £30, £50, £100 or even £2,500 on eBay, but it doesn't say whether these are just offering prices or actual sales. Time
will tell how the facts and the market will sort themselves out. People are peddling all sorts of things online claiming they're rare and valuable errors. Some could be the worthless result of
post-Mint damage. But genuine errors will always find interested buyers, although the price will be determined by supply and demand, not seller high hopes. -Editor
To read the complete article, see:
 Wayne Homren, Editor 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@gmail.com To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum All Rights Reserved. NBS Home Page Contact the NBS webmaster 
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