(Newport Beach, California) - Professional Coin Grading Service has certified the first reported Sacagawea golden dollar coin struck with the edge lettering intended only for Presidential dollars. The submitter will receive a $10,000 finder’s reward from PCGS.

“The United States Mint set up specific internal procedures in an attempt to prevent this type of error from happening. But it did happen, and it’s an amazing-looking error,” said Ron Guth, PCGS President.

The 2007-dated coin was struck at the Denver Mint and has been examined and authenticated by the experts at PCGS. The coin was submitted by Andrew Moores of Lakewood, Colorado who found the coin in his pocket change. Moores believes he could have had the coin for as long as two weeks and only noticed it when he compared it with other Sacagawea Dollars that he had already set aside.

Moores was unaware of the reward until a coin collector friend mentioned that he had seen the offer on the PCGS Message Boards. According to Guth, who spoke with the submitter about the find, “Needless to say, Mr. Moores is a very happy man.”

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1. During what year was a mint mark first placed on a cent?

2. A beaver appears on the reverse of what country’s 5-cent coin?

3. How many arrows does the eagle hold on a $1 Federal Reserve note?

4. If a US coin bears a ‘C’ mint mark, at which mint was it struck?

5. The “piece of eight” of pirate treasure fame is actually what denomination?

Answers

Nov. 13 (Bloomberg) – In Washington, a city known for multi-billion-dollar budget deficits, some members of Congress and the Bush administration are near a meltdown over a much more modest figure: the old copper penny.

The government fears that citizens will melt U.S. pennies minted before 1982 to extract the copper, which, even with recent dips, has shot up in price over the past five years. In December the U.S. Mint banned any melting of pennies and nickels (nickel prices are up too), sidetracking one Ohio metals expert’s plan to cash in.

The government explained that it could cost more than $1 million a day to replace coins withdrawn from circulation to extract the metal. The increase in metal prices means the coins are now more expensive to make than they are worth. Walter Luhrman, of Jackson, Ohio, figures he’d net $1.5 million a year.

This is real money,'' Beth Deisher, editor of Coin World, of Sydney, Ohio, the world's largest circulation coin publication, said of the businessman's idea.It’s like going for gold on the ocean floor.”

Deisher, who editorialized against Luhrman, said for the past few years, ``Rome has been burning and the Treasury hasn’t done anything about it.”

Indeed, over the past few months, the issue has been no small change in Washington, triggering two bills, a scheduled hearing, and complaints to the Treasury Department about why it has taken so long to react to the rise in metal prices.

It costs 1.67 cents to make a penny, up from .93 cents in 2004. This means the U.S. Mint lost $31 million in making 6.6 billion new pennies in fiscal 2007 and another $68 million for more than 1 billion nickels, according to Michael White, a spokesman for the U.S. Mint. Speculators, taxpayers, suppliers, and coin collectors are affected too.

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Susan Headley provides a link to the ANA’s Humor Column Competition, which I wasn’t aware of. A quick read of the one that had her “literally holding [her] gut and chortling loudly” left me with but a small smirk. Different strokes for different folks.

It’s not often that you get to combine humor and coin collecting though, so make sure to take a gander at the humor columns. They’re not half bad.

1. Who appears on the obverse of the Monroe Doctrine Centennial commemorative of 1923?

2. What animal was shown on the reverse of the 1983 $200 gold coin?

3. What American president’s name appears twice on a 1985 Federal Reserve Note?

4. What are dime stock quarters?

5. Whom did Richard Nixon appoint as Mint Director?

Answers