A Question About 1998 - 2000 WAM's

I would say it is probably the result of the same error occurring more than once (because it is known to have happened on other occasions.) Another possibility is a group of dies that were mis-directed and they were not all used at the same time. Typically a die is used until it is retired and no die would last long enough to produce cents all three years. And if it did the WAM cents would be a LOT more common than they are. It could be possible that one die could have bridged two years (end of one and beginning of the other) but not three. A key question here is whether of not the 98 or 200 WAM's came from more than one die, or if the 99 WAM shares a die with either a 98 or 2000 WAM.

it probably isn't an error, rather a variety, as the dies were paired together intentionally at the mint.

i dont know thats why I asked the question, hoping the big guns wouldshedsome insights...

Nobody knows for certain how it happened....most likely just an accident. And, yes, they also used some business strike working dies to make as few 1998 and 1999 Close AM proofs. I 2000 CLAM has never been discovered. You can read more here:

http://www.lincolncentresource.com/wideams.html

are there 98 99 or 2000 Wide AM from denver? or are they all from philly

I see a few posts here suggesting that somewhere
there are mintage numbers on ea. yr. (98,98,00)Wams.
I have never seen any. Why I say that is because there
seems to be a lot of stating which yr. is the most common
and or least common. I really think that we will never know
the exact figures on this. Even an estimate would be just a guess.
Some say the 2000 is rarer than the 98 and then vice versa.
If there are indeed actual numbers I would like to see them.
There could be many of ea. yr. still tucked away somewhere in rolls etc.
One thing though is that these coins in circ. will not last very long
as far as condition. Zinc. does not fair as well as copper.
So the value will increase as time goes by with the better grades.

Obviously going by what we find in circulation would not be a very good measuring stick for the mintage of each year. I have seen threads were the amount of each year found by collectors varies greatly. I myself have found 11 WAMs 10 from 2000, 1 from 1999 and 0 from 1998. I don't think any of us think the 98 are the least common. But I agree with the OP it does seem unlikely this should have happened three years in a row.

There are no official numbers and the claims of relative rarities are based on reported finds and how frequently they seem to show up.



Without official records it is the ONLY measuring stick we CAN use. The key thing is you can't use just one report or one persons report because it will be biased by person and location. To get a true representation you need many reports and over as wide an area as possible. Even so you need to watch of biases based on location of release where all or most of a variety are released in just one area.