tracking errors by timing of mint production

[coppersleuth]

I've got a couple of questions that have raised my curiosity for some time. I'll ask one here and post the other separately.

With a lot of modern errors (such as Minnesota quarter doubled dies, "speared" buffalo nickels, and various Lincoln DDO's , doubled ears, and the like), how does one determine the likely timeframe they were minted?

In particular, it seems there are more seasoned dealers or collectors that know roughly the time frame certain errors likely got produced. As an avid collector of OBW rolls (when they are hopefully truly OBW!!) and mint sewn bags, I acquire these with one purpose - to tear them open and hunt for variety "treasure". Perhaps I could try to be smarter, probably more so in the case of mint sewn bags, to research what time periods errors occured and try to find bags which have similar production dates.

I know not all mint sewn bags have specific monthly date stamps (seems to vary widely - most often just the year).

So the question is - How do I research when production errors occured for major varieties, and who knows this info? Or perhaps it is a deep dark secret........!!!!

Anyway, your comments appreciated!!

Jim

[eagames]

I think on modern stuff which is mostly boxed by contractors people figure it out based on box dates. All boxes don't have dates but some have date stamps so after someone gets lucky on a box with a date they know to look for more. There also can be locations with the dates where most of an error went to a certain place like the high/low leaf quarters were a certain date and seemed to mostly be in Texas and Arizona.

Errors/varieties might be in a certain bag then the mint pulls the die to polish it or they swap reverses so they can show up again soon after with gaps in between so nothing's a sure deal.

[coop]

I've found boxes of cents that had a date on them, and they were from the same processing. I opened 10 rolls, found nothing put them back to work and bought another batch. It's just what ever you get in the box that you will find. You see rolls of 1972-P Cents on Ebay all the time, giving a certain date that their box was from. But ask yourself. If you got a box of rolls of Cents that you found nothing in, what would you do with them? (The ones you didn't open) Sell them on ebay.... The person selling them isn't that lazy they wouldn't be looking through them. There just unloading rolls that they assume there is nothing in. Kind of like me, test several rolls, nothing there get rid of what you assume there is nothing in. Put them into the work they were created to do.

[murphy]

To answer your question - nine different 2006P variety cents - all found within just a few weeks in February and March. AT Systems who packaged these cents do not stamp the date on their boxes. There is no way to tell when these varieties were packaged for shipment unless some were found packaged by a different armord car company who date their boxes.

[Bob P]

I think the question has probably been answered as best it could be. It is real difficult now days to tell because contractors do not necessarily date stamp the boxes. Another thing to consider is that once the coins are bagged/boxed, they could go anywhere or in the case of a bag, get emptied and re-rolled. That may not happen for months either. You are likely to find more varieties at the beginning of the year as well. As varieties are being found and info is published about them, the mint goes back and re-checks dies. Chances are that unless it is something amazing, the die would have gone through it's complete striking period.

[coop]

A scarry thought. I was trying to figure out how many dies were made in a year from just one mint. So I found a mintage from 1997-D Cents.
4,576,555,000 Cents made.
If a die lasted and made 100,000 coins. That would mean:
45,765.55 dies were made (Just for obverse, reverse is that same number more.) Of course they don't make Cents every day but, lets say that they did. So the 365 Days into the number made would be 125.38 dies per day or a total of 5.22 per hour. If the number of Cents made pre die is higher, then the formula would be all wrong. So no wonder a certain die for each year is so hard to find.

[Bob P]

Good research Coop. I had done that same research a few years ago...before the coins minted were in the billions. Another good reason why the mint doesn't want to waste time with anything as trivial as a doubled die Imagine trying to track down the die...especially if your morning coffee was a little stronger than normal?

[coop]

I just wish the mint would say how many dies were used each year, then we could get a better idea of how many coins were made as an average per die pair. When you have a coin from a certain die, you would have an idea of how many were made.

[Bob P]

Coop...they do put out an annual report with that information. Chuck showed me one of their reports last year when I was up there. Maybe he can give you more info on where that comes from??

[eagames]

That's a scarry thought!

Maybe they get 100,000 cents between looking at the dies or doing polishing then re-use most several times.

Out of all those different die used I can often count that rolls have coins from 6 or more different ones.

[coop]

That would be good, it would give us a better idea of how many coins a die can produce. It would be nice if we could get a Pre 1982, 1982-89 and 91-2005 area. To see what the average would for those eras. See if the how the copper Cents, Zinc and single squeeze compare in numbers of coin made. Then we could have a ball park number of how many coins per die pair is the average.

[coop]

Ed, that would fit in with the number of 5.22 dies per day. But most times I've tried to sort them all out I end up with 6-19 different dies according to markers. I don't that all the time, but if I get a whole box, I may do that with the first roll to see what I will find in the roll.

[eagames]

I've also had multiple boxes with the same date stamp and seen each box had a different group of dies with none in common. Makes me think they run a group of dies a day or less then pull em and check em so the mix changes fast.

Another way to ballpark the mix of dies in rolls is think of when you find a roll with a variety it seems like they have from a few to something in the teens of a given variety.

Like you said the die life must have been a lot less before zinc.

Maybe somebody will show some real die numbers for a zinc and copper year and answer this one.

[coppersleuth]

Some great discusion here, folks. I've learned a lot from this dialogue.

It's funny, you know! I buy mint sewn bags periodically, mostly from the late 50's, early 60's, 70's, 80's. I know that the better investment is probably to keep them sealed as original, because sometimes the bidding for truly sealed bags can be vigorous.

But I have the copper fever, and I just CAN'T help myself. Must tear into them and start going blind rummaging through the thousands of coins. Like a little treaure hunt. But, whatever floats the boat, right?

Good point one of you made about the likelihood that OBW rolls are sold by folks that have looked through some rolls from a box, found nothing, then sold the rest figuring nothing would be in the remaining OBW rolls. Probably very true that nothing is in them, but I can see where some folks would simply grow weary of the continuous dig. Probably not laziness, just boredom and fatigue to make 'em say "Ah, to heck with it" and sell the remaining unopened rolls.

[Bob P]

The one thing about starting to search a bag, and then rolling the rest because you haven't found anything may very well be a costly mistake for variety hunters. For those who remember the big search once the 1995 doubled die was first found probably know what I mean. Once it was determined that the doubled die was probably minted in the Feb-Mar time frame, everyone started snatching up the bags to look for them. (they were date marked at that time) The searches proved fruitless for some, while profitable for others. I had heard that there was anywhere from 3 to 350 found in any given 5000 count bag. You need to remember that all the cents minted were normally stored in a huge hopper until they were bagged. This hopper included coins from any number of dies, and may have not been completely emptied when refilled with coins. It is a guessing game at that point, and really hard to track down anything specific.