Native American Dollar Position A & B

Position is what way the collar was facing when the coin was struck. the collar is the part of the press that puts the design in the edge of the coin. I don't know why there are 2 positions though. Interesting. You can complete a set with just 1 of the positions per each coin. It really doesn't matter.

So Native American (and Presidential) dollars are edge incused with the year, mint mark, motto, stars. That is, those pieces of information are imprinted on the edge of the coin. This we all know.

For circulating quality and uncirculated quality coins, the edge incusing operation happens in a separate step after normal striking. In the second step, the coins are fed into the incusing machine randomly, causing "A" and "B" positions. Because they're incused so that the letters read right-to-left, there will be some coins where the lettering is right-side-up with respect to the obverse and others with lettering upside-down with respect to the obverse.

Statistically speaking the distribution of A and B positioning for these coins should be 50-50. The proverbial (and literal in this case) flip of a coin. Assuming that's true, A or B wouldn't hold any special value, but might be another "variety" for certain collectors.

For proof coins, edge incusing is part of the strike process, using a 3-piece collar. Because of this, the edge lettering is always right-side-up with respect to the obverse (and in the same orientation as well), thus no A/B positions for proof coins.

Read all about it right from the mint here: http://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs...=EdgeIncused

Hope this helps.

And

Thanks so much for the replies and the great info. Also, thanks for the reminder about the Learn section on the Mint website. I tend to get tunnel vision in the Shopping section when visiting there.

True an A position should have no premium in value over a B position however, in my opinion, you would not have a complete set without both.