By CoinWeek ….
On Sunday, January 21, 2024, the online numismatic auction firm GreatCollections sold a rare (2000)-P Sacagawea dollar/Washington quarter mule mint error for $194,062.50 USD (including Buyer’s Premium). This is a new record price, surpassing the $192,000 paid for an NGC MS67 example of the error coin offered in a March 2018 Stack’s Bowers auction.
The specimen offered on Jan. 21, certified MS66 by PCGS, had no prior auction appearances in its current holder. PCGS attributes it as being struck by Die Pair 1 out of three possible die pairs known for the Sacagawea dollar/Washington quarter mule–the main diagnostic for Die Pair 1 being the die crack in the F of the word OF. One of four top pop coins reported by the grading service, PCGS gives an estimated value of $125,000 for the mule in that grade.
Only about two dozen examples in all die pairs have ever been found “in the wild”, and American collector Tommy Bolack now owns 15 of them. He was the winning bidder in last week’s auction.
History of the (2000)-P Sacagawea Dollar/Washington Quarter Mule Mint Error
A “mule” is an error coin produced by striking the obverse die of one denomination of coin on one side of a blank planchet and striking the reverse die of a second denomination of coin on the other side of that planchet. The (2000)-P Sacagawea Dollar/Washington Quarter mule is the best known mule among coin collectors and is arguably the most famous United States mint error coin, period. It is so popular that it is ranked #1 in David Camire, Nicholas Brown, and Fred Weinberg’s 2010 book The 100 Greatest U.S. Error Coins (Whitman).
The mule itself features the obverse of a Washington quarter as adapted for the 50 State Quarters program and the reverse of a then-new Sacagawea dollar featuring an eagle in flight. Because both sides of the mule include the respective denominations of the origin dies, the (2000)-P Sacagawea dollar/Washington quarter mule has a (total) face value of $1.25.
The error was discovered by Arkansas collector Frank Wallis in a roll of uncirculated dollar coins he got from the bank in May 2000, not long after the mule was created and inadvertently issued. Authenticated by the United States Mint, it was the first mule that the Mint is known to have allowed to “escape” into the channels of circulation.
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