Expert: PAPAJACK - 7/9/2007

Question
I purchased a box of 1000 John Adams Presidential Dollar coins.  I have gone through about 25 rolls so far.  The errors that I am finding are the following: So far I have about 12 coins that all have damage on the edge, each exactly where the UNUM appears.  It's like the edge of the coin has been smashed.  Some of the coins as little as 1/16 of an inch whereas others are up to 1/4 inch.  If I put all of the error coins together with the greatest error to the slightest of error you can see the consistency of error location.  I'm thinking that the damage might have occurred prior to the writing on the edge because on a few of the coins have part of "UNUM" extending into the damaged area.
What would have caused such an error? Something mechanical?


Answer
Hello Don,          

Without actually examining the coins I cannot say for sure.
But the way they are produced leads me to believe it was after the production run.  I do think it was mechanical as you say.
The edge lettering is imparted to the coin using a process that presses the lettering into the outer diameter while rolling the coin. If it did have a flat spot on it during the process it would most likely slip and have all the lettering messy. This would depend on how out of round the coin became when the damage occurred.
Errors like this carry no premium since it was human or mechanical error rather than a die error that was made into a whole production run.

These coins will not be rare collector items and millions will have similar defects through handling.

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Thank You and Good Luck

PapaJack