. Just look in the Numismatic Glossary over there on the left. Easier than me saying anything. 
Posted 03/15/2023 9:38 pm
A "mule" is a certain kind of mint error. All mules are mint errors, but not all mint errors are mules.
In horse breeding, a mule happens when two different species - a horse and a donkey - are bred together. Horses and donkeys don't "naturally" belong together, but if you force them together, the end result is a mule.
In numismatics, a mule happens when a coin is struck using two dies that were originally intended for two different coins - the two dies don't "naturally" belong together, but somebody in the mint "put the wrong die in the press", and the resultant coins from those mis-matched dies are called mules. Some typical examples:
- There are golden $1 mules where a die from the obverse of a quarter was used instead of the regular Sacagawea obverse. Wikipedia. These are perhaps the most famous mules in the American series.
- For a large mint that strikes coins for many different countries, it's possible to get mixed-country mules. Here's a 1985 Canadian dollar that has a New Zealand dollar obverse.
Mules are quite spectacular mint errors and are often quite valuable, worth thousands, but not all mules are expensive - it depends on how many were made before the error was discovered. There's a nice cheap mule in the New Zealand 2 cent series, with a Bahama Islands 5 cent obverse. These cost around $150 these days; they used to be a lot cheaper.
Can't help with your Lincoln pillar error thing, sorry.
In horse breeding, a mule happens when two different species - a horse and a donkey - are bred together. Horses and donkeys don't "naturally" belong together, but if you force them together, the end result is a mule.
In numismatics, a mule happens when a coin is struck using two dies that were originally intended for two different coins - the two dies don't "naturally" belong together, but somebody in the mint "put the wrong die in the press", and the resultant coins from those mis-matched dies are called mules. Some typical examples:
- There are golden $1 mules where a die from the obverse of a quarter was used instead of the regular Sacagawea obverse. Wikipedia. These are perhaps the most famous mules in the American series.
- For a large mint that strikes coins for many different countries, it's possible to get mixed-country mules. Here's a 1985 Canadian dollar that has a New Zealand dollar obverse.
Mules are quite spectacular mint errors and are often quite valuable, worth thousands, but not all mules are expensive - it depends on how many were made before the error was discovered. There's a nice cheap mule in the New Zealand 2 cent series, with a Bahama Islands 5 cent obverse. These cost around $150 these days; they used to be a lot cheaper.
Can't help with your Lincoln pillar error thing, sorry.
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
