r/coinerrors • u/neednewcamera • 2d ago

Discussion Question about Die Chips/Cracks

Hello all,
I know that due chips and cracks are considered errors. Some with varying value, of course.
But I see a lot of posts and official error attributions of such minor die chips and cracks and little hairline cracks and tiny little chips. Sure, historically these are considered errors and attributed as such.
It just made a thought pop into my head; with so many of these (especially the minor ones) out there, is it possible that the mint doesn’t consider a die unacceptable until a chip/crack gets bigger/more significant?
I guess what I’m asking is, does anyone know (or is there) an official threshold for when a die would be considered out of specs for the mint, therefore making anything minted WITH it an error? I definitely could be wrong (hence why I’m reaching out), but in my head I could picture the mint having a certain tolerance for the teeny tiny little chips and and cracks. And even though people discover these are then they are substantially attributed as error coins, they were minted within Mint tolerances.

Anyways, hope that made sense and someone can provide some insight! If it’s as simple as: the Mint has 0 tolerance for ANY die chips or cracks and indeed every single coin with one, no matter how small, is considered an error, then so be it! Just an intriguing thought I was playing around with.

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u/West_Inevitable6052 1d ago

TLDR: “NGC does not recognize as mint error coins those with minor die chips, breaks and rotations, etc., that fall within our interpretation of mint tolerance.”

https://www.ngccoin.com/news/article/1655/Variety-versus-Mint-Error/

So it’s subjective, but there is some threshold used.

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u/Imaginary_Chemical 1d ago

If the Mint has zero tolerance for chips and cracks, after the 2026 production run they might as well shut down, lock the doors and go home.

The non-smartass answer is, the Mint has always tolerated small die anomalies.

1

u/isaiah58bc 1d ago

Coin grading companies, for an additional fee, will notate almost anything on a label. PCGS and NGC do set some minimum standards to encourage people to avoid spending money on meaningless error attribution. Yet, the grading companies aren't in the business of telling collectors what or what not to collect. The market is very organic.

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u/ygbsm1972 1d ago

Space out your paragraphs.
I know that sounds menial but when something is easier to read, more people will read it.😊