This set of plates, and two pages of them that follow, depict the Newell "Doubting Thomas" Specimen of the Doubled Edge Lettering variety of Washington Presidential Dollars. Here is the story, as it was related to me by the finder's son, Bill Newell:
"Doubting Thomas" Newell, Bill's father, wanted nothing to do with the Presidential Dollar error frenzy which was swamping his home state of Florida. Although some folks in Florida would eventually find thousands of plain edge dollars, "Doubting Thomas" didn't figure that any of that good luck would ever come his way. His son encouraged him to buy a couple of rolls of coins, "just to see," but Thomas was adamant. None of this tomfoolery for him!
Finally, Bill decided to just go ahead and buy some rolls anyhow, which he did. He took them over to his father's house and talked him into to taking a couple of them just for the heck of it. If no errors turned up, well, he could just spend the darn things. His mother, Rose, who was a little more amenable to the project, selected a couple of rolls from the dozen or so that Bill had brought, and "Doubting Tom" grudgingly picked out a couple of rolls for himself. And then set them aside and forgot about them.
Rose opened her rolls, but didn't find anything. Realizing that Tom wasn't likely to bother opening his without a lot of prodding, she encouraged him to do so, which he did, and he quickly scanned them to prove that there were no plain edge dollars to be found there and what a waste of time the whole thing had been. But then he noticed that one of the coins looked a little funny on the edge, so he asked Rose to take some photos and send them to Bill.
I got an email from Bill's wife, Cher, sending me some of these photos you see here along with a question asking if this coin was rare or worth anything. I have to admit, I was pretty excited when I saw this email, because I had seen the Bell specimen posted in a forum somewhere and thought this error was just really cool! And now I had a site visitor reporting the same error type! After a few more email exchanges and a couple of telephone conversations, we made arrangements for the coin to be sent to error coin scholar Tom DeLorey so that he could see the coin, and then send it off for grading.
NGC has graded this specimen MS-64 and the Newell family have decided to dub it the "Doubting Thomas" Double Edge Lettering specimen. Good for them! =)
"Doubting Thomas" Newell, Bill's father, wanted nothing to do with the Presidential Dollar error frenzy which was swamping his home state of Florida. Although some folks in Florida would eventually find thousands of plain edge dollars, "Doubting Thomas" didn't figure that any of that good luck would ever come his way. His son encouraged him to buy a couple of rolls of coins, "just to see," but Thomas was adamant. None of this tomfoolery for him!
Finally, Bill decided to just go ahead and buy some rolls anyhow, which he did. He took them over to his father's house and talked him into to taking a couple of them just for the heck of it. If no errors turned up, well, he could just spend the darn things. His mother, Rose, who was a little more amenable to the project, selected a couple of rolls from the dozen or so that Bill had brought, and "Doubting Tom" grudgingly picked out a couple of rolls for himself. And then set them aside and forgot about them.
Rose opened her rolls, but didn't find anything. Realizing that Tom wasn't likely to bother opening his without a lot of prodding, she encouraged him to do so, which he did, and he quickly scanned them to prove that there were no plain edge dollars to be found there and what a waste of time the whole thing had been. But then he noticed that one of the coins looked a little funny on the edge, so he asked Rose to take some photos and send them to Bill.
I got an email from Bill's wife, Cher, sending me some of these photos you see here along with a question asking if this coin was rare or worth anything. I have to admit, I was pretty excited when I saw this email, because I had seen the Bell specimen posted in a forum somewhere and thought this error was just really cool! And now I had a site visitor reporting the same error type! After a few more email exchanges and a couple of telephone conversations, we made arrangements for the coin to be sent to error coin scholar Tom DeLorey so that he could see the coin, and then send it off for grading.
NGC has graded this specimen MS-64 and the Newell family have decided to dub it the "Doubting Thomas" Double Edge Lettering specimen. Good for them! =)