For several years, I have been noticing canceled dies, originally offered by the mint to the public in 1997, that have been presented for sale in the secondary market.
These dies are accompanied by Certificates of Authenticity issued by the US Mint containing detailed information about the dies: press types, mint facility, dates of service, press number, number of strikes at retirement and reason for retirement.
I have been entering the collected information from these certificates into a spreadsheet. While I am continuing to add information as it becomes available, I thought that I would make the current status available so anyone can study the data.
I would be interested in seeing any comments, observations, or conclusions anyone might wish to share!
Side note, but I'm curious as to what "Piece Out" means for the reason for retirement. I see Piece Out Engraving and Piece Out Border, maybe it's mint terminology for die chips and breaks? Missing piece out of the engraving or border?
The 2004 Denver Wisconsin Quarter die was put in service and removed the same date (October 4, 2004), with a "piece out" of the die. The mintage was 69,018. There is a decent chance that was one of the extra leaf quarters. There was an Inspector General's Office (IGO) investigation report on one of the extra leaf quarters issued in 2007, and I think it had a fairly similar estimate of the number struck.
The Philadelphia dime listing for the die in service from September 25 to October 6, 1998 is interesting, It was in service for 11 days and only struck 38,220 dimes and was already "worn"? The Philadelphia quarter die put in service and removed the same date, May 6, 2003, only produced 27,000 quarters and was also "worn"? What exactly did Philadelphia do to those poor dies?
Side note, but I'm curious as to what "Piece Out" means for the reason for retirement. I see Piece Out Engraving and Piece Out Border, maybe it's mint terminology for die chips and breaks? Missing piece out of the engraving or border?
THANKS! I will add your information to my database. I am on the lookout for more!
Where I show "Piece Out" it means "Piece Out Engraving," as I indicated at the bottom. I suspect that may refer to a chip, internal die break or some such.
Where the certificate says "Piece Out Border" I indicate that under Retirement Reason. That may mean a Cud.
I have only seen one die where the cancellation did not completely erase all remnants of the damage, and that was a collar clash (see photo). {Posted by CCF member Khromtau) here: https://goccf.com/t/484554#4372103
YouTube channel The Coin Box did a six part video series of US Mint canceled dies, here's the general overview one. His other canceled die videos are more specific to certain years with more info. I have two Olympic canceled dies with most of the design visible.
Some of the dies have COAs from the mint, some don't.
Quote: I have two Olympic canceled dies with most of the design visible.
Thanks for responding. I think the Olympic dies were the only dies sold by the mint in this program where the die face was not completely obliterated.
The video is good! Thanks for that!
If you have the certificates for your dies, I would be pleased to add them to my database. If you are interested and willing, send me images of the certificates or post them in this thread.
If the dies show evidence of the reason for retirement (I doubt that they do, since the Olympic Dies were supposedly coated with Chromium after retirement and before distribution) I would be interested in that photo also.
Here are my two Olympic dies, one has the cap missing. The third one with Olympic flame is not mine, it's for sale on ebay, $729 I think which is too high in my opinion. All three were retired due to Starburst, small imperfections in the field causing light spots on the coins when struck. I don't know if the mint still calls them Starburst or not. If you want to take the time to look there's canceled dies on ebay, some show the COA, some don't. I've seen a few Olympic dies for sale but the COA was lost, I wouldn't want one without the COA.
On bottom is a screenshot of The Coin Box video showing the populations of Olympic dies the mint sold. The flame dies are the most common, 632, but still scarce compared to the thousands of other dies sold.
Quote: Here are my two Olympic dies, one has the cap missing. The third one with Olympic flame is not mine, it's for sale on ebay, $729 I think which is too high in my opinion. All three were retired due to Starburst, small imperfections in the field causing light spots on the coins when struck. I don't know if the mint still calls them Starburst or not. If you want to take the time to look there's canceled dies on ebay, some show the COA, some don't. I've seen a few Olympic dies for sale but the COA was lost, I wouldn't want one without the COA.
THANK YOU! I will add this information to my database! I am monitoring ebay daily for Dies with COAs posted for sale and have made numerous additions from that source.
I do notice one characteristic of the Olympic Die COAs is that they all show an extremely small number of strikes! I am not sure what to make of that! It likely has to do with being Proof dies, but I have no other proof die records, so far, for comparison that are not Olympic!
I had an earlier post that prompted this one which includes a brief mention of "Starburst" - for that post see this link: https://goccf.com/t/484554
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Posted 10/21/2025 2:57 pm
