You can buy certain dies from the Mints website, but they are completely defaced. You didn`t think they would sell regular dies, now did you? I`ll take one 1933 $20 die, thank you!
kelso_boy, I am not totally sure but I believe because of the possibility of Counterfeiting, the U.S. Mints turn over all of the retired Dies to the U.S. Treasury Department for destruction! However, this was not the practice in the late 1700's through around the mid 1800's or even later and the evidence of this, is some restrikes using the original Dies. I believe that it is now against the Law to purchase, sell, own or have in your possession any retired Die(s) used by the U.S. Mints for minting U.S. or even Foreign coins. There have been some very old and rusty Dies from other countries show up on eBay from time to time. I did not watch any of the auctions long enough to find out if eBay pulled the auctions because they were illegal or not. In my experience, if you are uncertain as to whether it is illegal or not to purchase, sell, own or have something in your possession, then stay away from them! Frank bzcollektor, I did not see your post before I submitted mine as I was writing my response to kelso_boy while your were posting yours! Frank
I bought and Indiana Statehood Quarter die and was very disappointed when it arrived as the entire face had been ground off. I guess I was assuming they would just cut a big X across the face as they did years ago but NO! Came in a nice little box with one of the unc. quarters that were made with it, serial numbered and a nice little story telling how many quarters were made with my die. All in all I got a very expensive little piece of steel!
Yes, its still here and most of the statehood quarter dies sold out. Don't know if they are still selling them or not but at least I have one from the Denver mint. Thought about turning a wooden stand to display it on if I can find a glass "bubble" to sit over it. Be something to talk about when company shows up. Still would have liked for the mint to have at least left "Indiana" visible on the die!
It's not illegal to own, sell or buy coin dies - US or otherwise. There are quite a few of them on the market at any given time. They are considered to be highly collectible - and very expensive ! I photographed a Morgan dollar obverse die at a coin show once ( I'll have to look for the pic ) - asking price was $12,000.
The descriptions on the usmint website are pretty straight forward "To prevent unauthorized reproduction of U.S. coinage, the die's original striking surface image has been removed by the United States Mint to conform to security procedures governing circulating coin die disposition." The grinding method is relatively new. Previously, the dies were melted at the striking surface and occationally, portions of the details would still remain. I don't know how long ago it was that the strike surface was simply X-ed out, but I'm guessing your looking at 30-40 years ago minimum.
If one wishes to have a die as a conversational type item, token dies are on ebay with some regularity. These dies are typically not defaced in any way, and I have purchased a half dozen or so for as little as $4 per die (less expensive than the tokens they produced). Kind of a neat thing to show folks, as they likely have never seen one.
I have to ask, how did you get that Indiana die? Buy it from the mint? I only ask because I live in Arizona, and I'd like to look into getting an Arizona die when it comes out in 2008. ~AJ
that's too bad eh. but as long as all the stuff in the package is complete to certify this chuck of steel, this is definitely highly collectible and highly valuable in the future.
Actually try 9 years. The mint sold US olympic coin dies that just had an X cut across the face of the dies. These dies sold out very quickly and have risen to extremely high levels on the secondary market. Typically around $600 or so per die. One of the reasons the mint goes to such lengths to deface the dies so severely was because back in the early 60's some dies that still had pat of the design were used to create fake multistruck error coins.
