Wow, talk about a HOT new subject! Since the release of the new Washington dollar in February, all sorts of errors have been found. Most are considered minor or just part of the normal minting process. Then there are the Washington dollars that have NO edge lettering at all!

It appears that many Washington Dollars totally missed this process since this edge lettering happens AFTER the actual striking of the coin. No one knows for sure if the mintage of these Washington dollars that missed this process is 1,000, 20,000 or 300,000. I guess that tally won’t be known until the Mint releases an official statement or when all of the bags of Washington Dollars are released from the Federal Reserves.

Ebay has been loaded with these. The amount of pages in the Error section actually doubled. This new error has invited error counterfeiters into grinding off the edge lettering on this new dollar. As long as there is a dollar to be made, these bottom feeders will try to steal your money one way or another, so be careful. PCGS has started to certify these errors, as I’m sure NGC will also. But what if you’re not sure what a real one or a fake one looks like? Stay with the dealers who have plenty of positive feedback on eBay. One such dealer from California actually gives a letter of Guarantee & Authentication with his Washington dollar errors.

So you want to buy off eBay:
*Look for those sellers with lots of Positive feedbacks
*Remember to look for grinding marks on the edge of the coin
*Weighing the coin may help, but with so little metal being removed the weight will still be close.
*The internal copper core will be uneven and more to one side than the other. This is normal (look at any Clad coin like a new quarter). If the copper core is “even” beware!

Prices haven’t settled on these errors yet, they started out really high, around $1,200 and now are around the $200 to $250 area. $150 sounds really good if you get a letter of Authentication from the dealer or $200 if it’s certified by PCGS or NGC.

The final price will be determined by the amount that is finally released into circulation. The lower the mintage the higher the price and visa versa.

Beware of the Washington Dollar blank planchets being offered, whether raw or in Washington Dollar Shotgun rolls (rolls rolled by private companies) since these are a scam. The Washington Dollar planchets and the Sacagawea planchets are EXACTLY the same, identical in diameter, weight, and color. Yet some eBayers have been willing to pay HUGE sums of money for a Washington/Sacagawea planchet located in the end of a roll that was made by a private rolling company. Even Government released rolls can be tampered with to include one of these planchets. So what’s the scam? Sacagawea planchets regularly sell between $100-$150. Some buyers have been paying $400, $800 and even $2,000 for these so called Washington planchets as singles or in rolls... Be careful, know whom your buying from, ask questions and look at the feedback or just deal with a known error coin dealer.