2003 and Later Error Cents

[BadThad]

In 2003 the Mint instituted a new program to "eliminate" errors from escaping them. I have one, a 10% off center 2003...but that's the only one I have. Any one have any true error coins from 2003 or later?

[Scott99]

I haven't come across any myself.

[liveandievarieties]

I know of a couple 2006 off-centers. An error guy I know turned down a thousand dollars for his. Late date errors are extremely rare, their prices show it.

What if the mint found a way to eliminate all die varieties???

[GrumpyEd]

I'm not sure what year, maybe 1999? The mint stopped shipping cents in 5k bags.
After that most big errors must get found by the rolling places and I think they are supposed to return the errors to the mint that won't fit in a roll.

[BadThad]

I know of a couple 2006 off-centers. An error guy I know turned down a thousand dollars for his. Late date errors are extremely rare, their prices show it.

What if the mint found a way to eliminate all die varieties???

How are off were the 2006's? I bet they were only 10% or less.

I doubt they will ever be able to eliminate varieties. They thought they licked the problem with single squeeze, we all know how that worked out. However, the varieties are definately weaker compared to the older ones for the most part.

[admrose]

What if the mint found a way to eliminate all die varieties???

That would be to stop minting coins.

[liveandievarieties]

No, I don't think Die Varieties will ever be eliminated from production. Think how crazy it is if you were a hardcore error collector and all of a sudden there's never again anything new....

[seal006]

I am not so sure. They did find a way to eliminate RPMs. Who knows, with a new die making process, it could eliminate doubled dies as well.

[GrumpyEd]

I don't think their goal is perfection.
With todays quality I don't see anything that deters the intent of the mint to make coins for commerce.
Nothing would be improved from their perspective, they probably focus more on making coins that last than making them perfect.

Collector products like proof sets are a different story, they probably do realize they'll get less returns with higher quality so if they can do it better they will. Notice that in the past cameo proofs were really rare but now it's the norm because they improved the methods.

I don't think single squeeze or ending hand punched MMs was done to improve quality, it was done to make production more efficient and cheaper.

[admrose]

I'm more shocked it took them over 100 years for somebody to think "Hey, why don't we just put the mint mark on the MASTER die?"

[GrumpyEd]

Might be based on volume.
Long ago they made less coins, millions instead of billions.
It took a lot less dies and for most years most of the coins were P so it was simpler/cheaper to punch the dies that were used at branch mints. If only one master was needed it was a trade off, make more masters or punch some mintmarks and they did whatever was cheaper. At some point it made more sense to do it on the master and also at some point started making dies in D.

[admrose]

And still they overused the ever loving daylights out of the dies they had.

[hasfam]

I know of a couple 2006 off-centers. An error guy I know turned down a thousand dollars for his. Late date errors are extremely rare, their prices show it.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be that way currently......LINK

[Maineman750]

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be that way currently......LINK

Either that or somebody got a heck of a deal.

[seal006]

I don't think their goal is perfection.
With todays quality I don't see anything that deters the intent of the mint to make coins for commerce.
Nothing would be improved from their perspective, they probably focus more on making coins that last than making them perfect.

Collector products like proof sets are a different story, they probably do realize they'll get less returns with higher quality so if they can do it better they will. Notice that in the past cameo proofs were really rare but now it's the norm because they improved the methods.

I don't think single squeeze or ending hand punched MMs was done to improve quality, it was done to make production more efficient and cheaper.

Ed, I think you missed my point. I am not saying that they would change things in an effort to do away with varieties. I am saying as their methods of producing coinage improves, some of the improvements might eliminate varieties. Just like with RPMs. The mint mark was placed on the master dies for efficiency and continuity purposes. The side effect is there are no longer RPMs. What if the mint started laser cutting the working dies rather than hubbing? The technology is already available. That would completely wipe out hub doubling, as well as speed up production.