Question:
Hi, I have a 2002 $1 outback australian coin that is similar to your 2000 mule $1 dollar coin. Are these common? Sorry if the following pictures are not visbile enough. If they aren't visible i will be happy to send some more. Regards
Answer:
Hi, Thankyou for your questions and for reading our blog.
Isn't it difficult to photograph coins! I can sort of get the idea of what you have but it's not always certain when you don't have clear pictures. I think what you have is a very slight mistrike dollar giving the effect of a partial extra rim around some of the coin. When the coin was struck it was not perfectly centered thus allowing for a bit of give in the strike creating the slight extra rim. Sometimes when the collar die is not fully engaged or the planchet slips out of the collar die you can get an "out of collar" coin which can give an extra rim on the coin. This will be evident showing a misalignment or problem with the rim on the coin. A "railroad" rim sometimes is seen. If yours is showing a normal rim and is slightly off center then it's not worth anything, just the $1 face value. If the rim isn't showing the normal reeding all the way round then it may be a genuine error and be worth a little more.
The 2000 dollar mule coin is a totally different coin. It has been minted with the wrong obverse (heads) die- that of the 10 cent piece, which is only slightly smaller. A dollar coin is 25 millimetres and the 10 cent 23.6 millimetres, so 1.4 millimetres smaller. With the smaller obverse die a perfectly centered mule would have a 0.7mm extra rim around the entire rim of the coin. We're talking very little so it's very easy to misidentify these if you don't know what you are looking for. The other thing is that your coin is an outback dollar and these mules are only known to exist for one production run of the mob of roos dollars in the year 2000.
I hope I've helped you with your questions,Happy collecting,
The australian-threepence.com team
Posted by harrisk at May 4, 2009 6:59 PM
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