Error Vs Variety

An error typically occurs during the minting process, while a variety tends to be an irregularity on the master hub......Errors tend to be unique or few of a kind, varieties tend to have multiples quantities........(UNLESS THE VARIETY IS A MINT INTENDED CHANGE LIKE TYPE 1 AND 2 Buffalo nickels), ALL VARIETIES ARE ERRORS, NOT ALL ERRORS ARE VARIETIES

Amida beat me to it.

In the linked thread many times they refer to a "die error". This can be the source of a lot of the confusion. Something that results from a "die error" is neither an error or a variety, it results in a die stage (Die stage is the proper term but you will often see it called a die state. Calling it a die state is incorrect.) Die stages are discrete steps of changes in the life of a die. A crack appears, the crack extends to a new spot, a chip appears, a clash appears, etc. Something where it wasn't there on the previous coin but it is on the next one, a discrete change. Die state refers to the amount of wear that a die has received and it is a continuous process. You can say this is a early stage and this is a late stage but you can't point to a specific coin and say "This is were it changed from early to mid state, it's always a range.

Something such as the 37 D three leg nickel is neither an error or a variety, it is a die stage. That reverse die wasonce sharp and new and it produced coins with four legs. As it wore it changed from an early to a mid, to a late, and finally a very late state and as it did the images it produced were less and lees sharp and clear, but they all had four legs. but then the die was severely polished removing part of the right foreleg. This created a die stage. The last coin struck before the polishing had four legs, the first coin struck, and all the coins after that, had three.

So in general a variety is present on all the coins of a given die, a discrete change in the appearance of the die creating that variety is a die stage, a gradual change in the condition of the die results in die states. A unique one of a kind occurrence is an error.

Errors are not manipulated.. Supposedly.
Varieties are.

HOWEVER, what do you call an error coin that was made purposely by the Mint? And if made continuous, wouldn't that be a variety?

There has indeed been instances of error coins being made deliberately.
That happened as a protest in 1970, when employees at The Royal Mint in London were not prepared to go with the transfer of their jobs (and their families) to Llanstrisant in Wales.

They deliberately made all sorts of error coins, and just chucked them over the perimeter wall of the London mint by the handful, to be picked up by passers - by, who were waiting for them out in the surrounding streets!


Almost all Americans are aware of the 1913 liberty Head Nickel made clandestinesly by Mint employees. I believe five of them exist.

It becomes a matter of choice on how you decide if coins in this class of manufacture are errors or varieties or even if indeed, they are legally happen to be coins at all.