Quote:But how could a next year coin get involved with a 1999
SBA? Last year.. Mmmkkkkaaayyyyy
I have a coin that is officially listed as a 2000-P
Sacagawea dollar with the "Pattern Reverse of the 1999" or more commonly known as a Cheerios Dollar. It's still in the original mint packaging, so I haven't seen the reverse that has highly detailed tail feathers. That difference makes this a very rare coin. I'm going to have it graded by PCGS as soon as I get everything set up the way I want.
I even have the original Cheerios Promotional box that the coin came in.
I got this coin in January of 2000 and thought it would be worth saving just because of the unique way it was packaged and issued. I thought it would be worth maybe $100 some time in the future so I wrapped the coin in bubble wrap and put it in a CD case and forgot about it. I never dreamed that it would turn out to be such a rare coin with the top auction price of more than $34,000 at Heritage back in 2008 for a PCGS MS-68. A MS-68 now goes for about $10,500.
A reported 5500 coins were sent to General Mills, each in a special holder with "One of the first 10,000,000 year 2000 Cents Struck" in the same mint package. The mint went all out to get the public to accept a dollar coin in hopes of replacing the good old paper dollar bill.
Only about 200 of the reported 5500 coins struck have been sent for grading, with the remaining 5300, most likely being found by kids, ripped open and spent as soon as they could get to the local convenience store.
These coins were struck in October of 1999 so that the coins needed for the General Mills promotion could be in the boxes of Cheerios and on store shelves as soon as possible in the year 2000. Later it was found that at least some of the coins that were sent to General Mills in the mint sealed holders turned out to be normal reverse Sacagaweas struck from well-worn die pairs. So it may be that less than 5500 of these rare coins were struck.
The only way to tell, at first, anyway, was to open the package. Later if you sent an opened coin to a
TPG, they would not give the coin the "Cheerios Dollar" variety listing on the slab.
Later an obverse die marker was later discovered so that coins that are still in the sealed package can be verified as the detailed reverse of 1999 because of a small obverse die polishing mark above Sacagawea's shoulder and pointing at the bottom of the P mint mark. That's how I'm sure I do have the "Pattern Reverse of 1999."
On an interesting side note, the same high detailed reverse was use as far back as July of 1999 used to strike 39 REAL, 22 Karat Gold Sacagaweas, twelve of which went up on the Space Shuttle Columbia Mission STS-93 to further promote the new 2000 golden dollar.
Although the Mint struck 39 of the 22 Karat gold coins, 27 were melted down, with the 12 remaining Space Shuttle coins going to Fort Knox for storage. These Gold coins will be displayed at coin shows and museums.
So to make a long story short (I know, WAY too late, sorry) you can have a coin of one year with the reverse of the year before, the year after, as in the '38, '39 and '40
Jefferson nickel and the early
Half Cent and cent that have reverses of coins 2 years difference. I'm not sure what the largest difference between the obverse and reverse dies would be, but someone out there does.
If for some strange reason you want to read even more on the Pattern Reverse of 1999 SAC, go to
http://www.smalldollars.com/dollar/page20c.htmlFor those of you still awake and reading, thanks!
Ben
Wow.
Posted 03/01/2014 11:55 pm
