The General Motors Experimental Cents.

It's possible the lucky collector might come across a piece such as that shown above (in roughly double size) in unattributed lots or even a junk box. If you don't know what it is, it's just a curiosity worth – well, not much; but if you do , you will know that it is a fairly scarce experimental coin with a respectable price tag.

The pieces are the size and composition of a Lincoln cent and even remotely resemble them in design although all legends and so forth are gobbelty-gook.

The year was 1965 and the U.S. was experiencing a severe coin shortage. With this in mind, General Motors Corporation invented a new type of minting machine, one they called a “roller press” – although it little resembled the roller presses from centuries before. The action in general could be described as consisting of two wheels, the rims of which touched and were studded with matching dies (engraved, incidentally, at the Philadelphia Mint). Supposedly, continuous bronze strip would be fed in from one side and finished coin spew out the other.

It was found that the machine was actually somewhat inferior to the conventional press and the experiment abandoned. All that remains are a certain number of the resulting experimental pieces (patterns?). Apparently all were individually numbered with a control number by scratching (the one shown is “9M”) so it is not a damaged coin.

Now you know.

Wayne Jacobs is numismatic expert. He is the award winning author of numerous articles. He is the secretary and editor of the "Mid-Island Coin Club Numismatic Journal"of Nanaimo, Vancouver Island , British Columbia. The MICC journal are hosted here: MICC webpages Copyright 2006 Wayne Jacobs. This article may be reprinted freely for non commercial purpose only if the resource box is left intact, linking back to us.