These are just a few of the MinT ErRoR cOiNs in my personal collection
Some of you who stop by here may all ready know that I am a coin collector. I've been collecting coins for about 35 years now! Recently I have branched off into a rather rare type of coin called "The Mint Error Coin". There are many different kinds of Mint Error Coins but my favorite type of mint error is the Off Center Strike, and the off center double strike. Below are some pictures of a few of my off center strike and my off center double stike USA coins
What happens is the blank comes down the line and is supposed to line up dead center under the die, but often times as the blank slides into the stamping machine, it will not line up perfectly, and it gets struck anyhow, and thus The Off Center Strike error coin. The errors coins are supposed to be found, and recycled at the mint, but in some case many of these types of errors, the off center strikes are missed, and they get through the inspection.
The best place to find off center strikes is to go to a bank in your area and buy a whole bag of coins, never opened, straight from the federal reserve via the mint. Start out small and get an unopened bag of fifty dollars worth of penny's, sort through the whole bag, keep what ever errors you find and replace the one cent you kept with another penny... in other words no matter how rare the error you find, and no matter what it's value is, you'll only ever pay one cent for each coin by buying the whole bag, and sorting through it. Sound interesting, wait till you see the photos I have for you of some off center strikes below...
Jim Nasium is the Author of: "How To Measure Off Center Strikes" found in Error Trends May 25th, 1989 on page 15 AND "To Measure Or Not To Measure" found in Error Trends Oct. 25, 1988 on page 27 AND in ERRORSCOPE Nov. 1989 Vol. 6 #4 on page 7 you can read an interesting artical on how to measure off center strikes I wrote called "Try It...You'll Like it" with photos...