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Images courtesy of NGC

August 14, 2015—Numismatic Guaranty Corporation of Sarasota, FL, has graded its first 2015-W American Liberty High Relief $100 mint error, and it’s a major one.

An NGC grader identified a 2015-W American Liberty High Relief $100 with a “medallic alignment” mint error, which is caused when one die is rotated 180 degrees. Coins are normally struck so that both sides are properly oriented if the coin is flipped from top to bottom on a horizontal axis. A medallic alignment means that coins must be turned along a vertical axis for the obverse and reverse to be right side up.

While large rotations are relatively common on early United States coinage, modern United States coins with medallic alignments are exceptionally rare. One well known example is the 1989-D Congress Bicentennial Silver Dollar, of which approximately 200 specimens with medallic alignments are believed to exist, and a small number of 2007 Presidential Dollars are known with medallic alignment.

This is the first rotated American Liberty High Relief $100 that NGC has seen, but it’s likely that more exist as the dies for these coins were expected to strike around 500 pieces per die pair on average. However, the number of examples with medallic alignment could be small if the error was caught early by the US Mint.

The coin is graded NGC MS 70.