I vaguely remember something from the  80's when the treasury  managed to loose the M2 money supply for a couple of hours.

The dealer who sold John J. Ford an original  CSA half for a re-strike price back in the 60's found out about Murphy's law. He offered the  coin to Ford at a rather busy show and Ford didn't have time to look it over. So, Ford  just offered the re-strike price for it and the dealer agreed.  Later on when Ford had time to look at it, I suppose there was a Good Ole Boy--"Yee-Haw" in a NYC accent. 

The coin wasn't in a slab when he bought it.

 I remember the story about the notes. I think they were roofers working on an elderly lady's barn. But they couldn't read from the same script when they went on T.V.  so their lucky find only lasted a couple of hours.

 

Heehehehehe, corruption? I live in Flawduh. We pay the King's Fifth to Washington (District of China) D.C every year to have a corruption franchise down here. 

An extensive  survey about how coin collectors react to doubt and Maalox moments, especially if they have little or no recourse, would be *real* interesting. I'd bet the greater part don't leave the hobby as supposed anymore than you leave the Hotel California--"You can check out any time you like but you can never leave."

I'd bet that when collectors have doubts and suspect mistakes and get depressed about it, they put the mistakes out of sight. Safety deposit boxes are good for that. Drop it in and maybe in 10 years a mistake really will be a MS65 with enough gradflation.

That's what makes me believe the whole thing really is on the up and up. When people  started telling him they thought it was fake, when he started to doubt his judgment, he put it up in the closet for 2 years.

In any case, I'm kind a happy to see a collector finally win one.  It was a nice ending to a real crappy year. 

A coin collector  bought a 1792 silver center cent pattern for $400 at a police auction. Other collectors and even club members thought it was a fake.  You can picture that scene with the "old timers" smirking at each other--aye, yon coin collector was fresh meat for someone...

Turns out the coin was authenticated recently (Reported in CoinWorld 12/22/08) by ANACS and graded as (*gasp*) VG 10 details scratched. ANACS website says it's estimated to be worth at least $300,000. 

http://www.anacs.com/(A(LnYqr_2ayQEkAAAAMGQ0ZDVmYTgtNTExYS00YWI4LTk4MDMtMTUzNDhlNzZkY2ZjUS99QdDuqr4GfkhHcq634EePg4E1)S(e1dbdo551oojm0qwl25owy45))/contentPages/ShowArticle.aspx?ID=50

Not bad for a rather well circulated coin. Now riddle me this. How many people at that police auction turned their noses up at that coin, after glancing at it for one second,  because it was well circulated and not Mint State 10,000++?

http://www.knightsofthecointable.com/kotctgallery/main.php?g2_itemId=2668

"I did not have sex with that servant girl.... Ms. Hemings."   

My favorites are New Jersey, Pennsylvania , and Alaska and Delware. I sorted them out last week and those are the only ones I'm  keeping.  Everything else has been consigned to laundry money.   My least favorite is Maryland.

Offer limited to 10,000 sets per household.

clogged die.

I commend you on your powers of observation but it's nothing at all. Mint marks were punched in by hand in 1971 from a drawing of "about" where it should be.

A nice variety to look for would be a re-punched mint mark (RPM). Some times they had to punch the mint marks several times and on the second or third try the punch would not line up with the last tap of the punch and so it looks doubled or even tripled. Sometimes  with D mint marks the  repunch was so close that all that showed was an  extended tip on one the ends of the D.  That was called a  "hang-nail."

It's probably a mis-aligned die. The striking  die wasn't properly centered over the anvil die. It's very common.

Clogged dies are very common. Typically metal from thousands of planchets have little bits of metal  scraped from them when they are struck and those  particles fill in the crevices of the die. 

But I believe you have die chips and not clogged dies. Clogged dies would not show any mint mark at all or would show only a partial mint mark. Chips happen because the area inside the mint mark is a weak point in the die. The mint mark is hubbed (cut into) the die. You could say that the inside of the mint mark does not have any metal around it  to "brace it" from the shock of striking, so they break off leaving a hole in that spot which will transfer as a raised spot on the coin.  At least that's how it looks to me.  Chips are very common though. Remember dies are backwards from coins. What's raised on a coin is recessed in the dies.

Lincoln cents struck in the 50's used to have chips in the R of Liberty Especially the lower part of the R and they were called a "Skirted R." . Sometimes just half the of the bottom part of the R would be chipped and it was called a Mini-Skirt.

It may be noting now but just wait until the new EL Cid takes over the treasury and President Harry Houdini pulls a new economy out of his hat and we're all rich again and living happily ever after.  That Santa Dollar will probably be worth at least 3 or 4 cents.   

Thank you Ukraine person.