An error of a different color

It looks like A Penny Saved is also following the Washington $1 coin errors avidly. Today he talks about the blank planchet errors — errors in quality control like all other errors, but apparently one that's a little rarer. These coins are completely unstruck with the intended design. No obverse, no reverse, and no edge printing.

It looks like a slug, really. The faces are pretty beat up and scratched. They're not that much to look at.

APS says that there are five blank $1 planchets up on eBay but I found more than a dozen. Some of them are the end coins on wrapped mint rolls!

Here's the kicker: One of the blank planchets up right now is one I'm selling.

Here's the story:

I had been getting rolls of the new $1 coins because (a) I think they're fun and (b) it will never be easier to get the uncirculated rolls than right now. I obtained the first couple of rolls a little late. So far, I've gotten eight rolls. The uncirculated rolls can go for a slight premium on eBay because there's the chance that there's an error, or several, in them. The missing edge lettering coins were going for $40 and up each, which would make the entire roll free, and then some.

But then it turned out that most of these edge errors went to banks in Florida. Scroll down on this page to see a picture of one Florida resident's huge stash of these error coins — possibly $100,000 worth if s/he gets moving! So then a lot of mint rolls from Florida started popping up on eBay, and the other ones really didn't have much interest.

Seeing that the upside for my non-Florida mint rolls was vanishing, at least for now, I decided to open up the rolls to check what was inside. At the time I had five unopened rolls. The first three all had normal edge-lettering. The fourth one had one coin without edge lettering. “I found one!” was what I told my wife, and I left it in the roll, opened up the fifth roll, and found nothing but regular edge lettering.

Somewhat later, I picked the coin out of the roll, and my jaw dropped when I saw it was blank on both sides. (I couldn't see this the first time I opened the roll because it was an interior coin.) At first I didn't even know if this was an error! How could anyone tell what it was? But then I looked around and saw a few listed on eBay, and they were going for well over $300.

After showing a few people, I listed it at the beginning of the week. At the time there were only a few on eBay, but more are coming out of the woodwork. I don't know whether they'll end up being worth $50 or $2,000 or $10,000. It's really hard to tell, and I'm more than happy with the few hundred I'll get out of this one. My upside's guaranteed, and it would really be awesome for my buyer to have upside, too!

Just my opinion, but if you're holding on to these mint rolls to sell later, I'd seriously think about cracking them open to see what you have. Or get a couple of rolls if your bank still has them. The premium for uncirculated rolls is thin, and the worst that could happen is you have $25 in spendable dollar coins. It's all upside right now to open them up.

And if I can hit the jackpot, anyone can!