What are doubled dies

You may have heard of coins selling for thousands of dollars and wondered what was so special about them. The reason a coin sells for huge premiums is its rarity. If there were oodles of coins of a certain type, someone would have to be lacking basic intelligence to pay a huge premium for one. Rarity can be caused by several reasons. The mint might not make many to begin with, or the coin could be destroyed, melted down or recalled by the government, increasing the rarity of the leftovers.

Then there are error coins. These are rare because processes at the mint are in place to avoid errors. One of the most popular errors is the doubled die. Just what is a doubled die coin? J.T. Stanton has written an entire article to explain just that. I met J.T. at an ANA summer conference in Colorado Springs, CO and he was a knowledgeable and enthusiastic teacher. In fact, he and Bill Fivaz (who was also at the conference) wrote the Cherrypicker’s Guide, an extremely popular error and variety book.

Without further ado, here’s JT’s article on doubled dies.