That's Their Story And They're Sticking To It?

Yes, I agree that this took some effort by someone, more than likely several someones.

I can see how it happened, but such a die pair would strike 12 coins a second, so where are the rest of them?

I've found a handful of these but threw them back because they were a CAM.

I just can't catch a break with the 99 WAM's!

I would be careful in buying this coin. If the U.S. Mint can prove that this coin was manufactured illegally, they may very well move to have it confiscated.

If it is a forgery, made from explosive impact dies, it has to be sold as a forgery to legally avoid knowing deception. By the looks of it however, I don't think it is a forgery, especially when you consider who is selling it.

I don't think we have heard the end of this story, at least from an official standpoint.

With as many eyes looking at the reverse of the 99's for WAM's you would think someone would have found another by now.

A little high Fredd, Those were struck on the older quad die presses running 120 cycles per minute so two coins per second.

It is conceivable that it could happen, and only one escape but you are really pushing credibility.

Press gets switched from dimes to cents. New collar put in some or all of the dime obverses swapped out but they get distracted, lunch or something, and don't get one or more of the dime reverses swapped. Operator fires up the press, looks at the out put "OH MY GOD!" and shuts down the press. Swaps out the dime reverses and condemns the struck coins. But one or two of them didn't get ejects properly and are still stuck up in the works somewhere (This does happen) Later to falls out into the holding bin but since it is the only one in the bin it doesn't get picked up and examined. The rest of the coins are fine and the holding bin gets dumped into the main hopper.

An unlikely scenario but in theory one that could happen. Deliberately made "error" is probably much more likely.

I left this post over in LCR and since the same topic appears here, I thought that I would let you all know what I think.

BJ Neff

Mule coins are indeed rare and at times not made by accident. One of the more widely known mules is the quarter obverse on the Sacagawea dollar reverse. To date, ten have been found of this mule with three different die pairings. This unusual amount of die pairings suggest that while the first may have been an accident, those that followed were not.

So, how does this happen. We can go back to the 1857 Flying Eagle cent for a partial answer. During that year, three mule die clashes occurred involving the Flying Eagle cent, the Seated Liberty quarter and half and the 1857 Double Eagle gold piece. While the most popular story surrounding these clashes was that the nightwatchman did it, that was not the real story. Chris Pillod analysis of the clashes showed that they occurred during the changing of the dies.

What this points to is that these mule coins were more than likely produced during the changing of the dies and probably not the result of just forgetting that the dies were not matched.

BJ Neff