2010 James Buchanan MS64

History

The Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005, Public Law 109-145, signed by President George W. Bush on December 22, 2005, directed that the date of issue, the mint mark and the mottoes be incused on the edge rather than struck on the faces. Congress pointed to edge-incusing as a hallmark of modern coinage used on high-volume issues such as the 2-Euro coin, a technique the United States had not applied at that scale. Because the inscriptions were added in a separate operation, coins passing through the presses could bypass the Schuler edge-lettering machine entirely and leave the Mint with a blank edge. The class of error appeared in the program's first year, 1997 dies aside, when tens of thousands of Washington dollars emerged without the date or IN GOD WE TRUST, and plain-edge examples continued to turn up as new designs entered production, including the fifteenth design, James Buchanan, in 2010.

Details

Phebe Hemphill modeled the Buchanan obverse after William E. McMaster's 1856 portrait, placing her initials on the collar, while Don Everhart's Statue of Liberty reverse served the entire series. The coin is manganese-brass clad over a pure copper core, with outer layers of roughly 77 percent copper, 12 percent zinc, 7 percent manganese and 4 percent nickel, and it measures 26.50 mm; reported weights run from 8.10 to 8.20 grams. No mintage exists for the error and no mint attribution is possible, since the date and mint mark were never applied, which is why both major grading services catalogue it as "(2010)" with the mint listed as N/A. The parent issues from which these coins escaped were struck to 36,820,000 at Philadelphia and 36,540,000 at Denver, with 2,224,613 proofs from San Francisco.

Features

The obverse carries a portrait of Buchanan with JAMES BUCHANAN above and, arched below, IN GOD WE TRUST, 15th PRESIDENT and 1857-1861. Everhart's reverse gives a low-angle view of the Statue of Liberty offset to the left in the lower right quadrant, her extended elbow at the center point, with a thin inner circle separating the figure from UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and the denomination $1 below the torch arm. A normal 2010 edge reads, incused, ten stars, the year, the mint mark, three further stars and E PLURIBUS UNUM; on this coin the edge is smooth and completely blank, which requires no magnification to see. Missing edge lettering is distinct from weak, partial, overlapped and inverted lettering, all of which are catalogued separately, and a Satin Finish missing-edge Buchanan from the collector sets is recognized as a separate Special Strike.

Notable facts

• PCGS describes the Satin Finish missing edge lettering Buchanan dollar as really scarce, noting that Satin Finish coins turn up with missing edge inscriptions far less often than circulation strikes.
• The Satin Finish 2010 Buchanan dollars were released April 13, 2010 in an eight-piece Presidential Dollar set priced at $18.95, and roughly three months later in the 28-piece Uncirculated Mint Set.
• Position A and Position B describe edge-lettering orientation rather than error, with Position A reading upside-down when the portrait faces up, and both are counted together in an issue's mintage.
• Rarity varies enormously within the error class: the John Adams missing-edge dollar has just over 1,800 examples graded by PCGS while the Washington variety exceeds 20,000, with more than 10,000 in MS65 alone.
• Far fewer edge errors have been found on proof Presidential dollars, which are produced at much lower press speeds and under tighter inspection.
• Numismatic News reported in 2010 that a plain-edge Buchanan found by a collector named Porter appeared to be unique at the time and was the only example NGC had graded.