Gold & Silver Forum - Which coin was the mint's biggest mistake?

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Which coin was the mint's biggest mistake?

I have brought together what I consider to be the four most unsuccessful coins in the Mint's history. Which was the worst? I consider the 40% silver half to be the biggest mistake since it permanently killed the half dollar as a circulating coin. Don't forget to vote after you read the descriptions!

20 Cent Piece
http://www.coinlink.com/News/images/...t_coins_ha.jpg
Minted from 1875-76, the U.S. twenty-cent piece was created at the urging of Senator John Percival Jones from Nevada. Jones represented the silver miners of the Comstock Lode. The coin was an immediate failure as it was easily confused with the quarters of the era, having the same Liberty Seated design on the front, and a similar eagle design on the back, as well as the same metallic composition and a similar size. One would basically have had to read the small, easily worn text on the reverse in order to determine the value (TWENTY CENTS vs QUAR. DOL.) without a side by side comparison. It also had no real use in everyday circulation, as it could not do anything that two dimes couldn't. The U.S. twenty-cent piece quickly failed to gain acceptance, and its mintage for general circulation ceased only two years after it began, making it the shortest lived US coin.

Susan B Anthony Dollar
http://www.east-buc.k12.ia.us/00_01/100/sv/sba2.jpg
The Susan B. Anthony dollar is a United States coin minted from 1979 to 1981, and again in 1999. It depicts women's suffrage campaigner Susan B. Anthony. Because of their similar size and color, it was found to be very easy to mistake the coin for a quarter. The originally-planned hendecagon-shaped edge, which would have distinguished it from the quarter, had been replaced with a depiction of an hendecagon and the same reeded edge as the quarter, thus compounding the confusion. While a large quantity were produced in 1979, they failed to circulate well (despite the slogan "Carry three for Susan B.") and a minimal number were produced in 1980. In 1981, none were produced for circulation, but instead were produced for numismatic sets marketed by the Mint. Many of those mint sets have been broken up, and it is not unusual to find 1981-dated Anthony dollars in circulation. At the end of production, the Treasury was left with hundreds of millions of the coins in its vaults.

75% silver 3 cent coin
http://z.about.com/d/coins/1/0/Z/0/-...ece_Silver.jpg
Around 1850, the Federal government reduced the cost for mailing a letter from five cents to three cents. Using the argument that people would find it useful to have a coin with which to buy a stamp (history does not tell us if people preferred to go to the post office to buy stamps one at a time in the 1850s), Senator Daniel Stevens Dickinson of New York proposed a three-cent coin be minted. Further, it was proposed that the new coin be made of an alloy of 75% silver and 25% copper that would have enough precious silver to be thought of as "real money" but not enough to be worth melting down. The three-cent coin was approved into law on March 3, 1851.

The new three-cent coin was the smallest United States silver coin ever made. Its small size made designing the coin problematic and the head engraver of the United States Mint, James Barton Longacre, created a shield superimposed on a six-pointed star for the front of the three-cent coin and a Roman numeral "III" for the back.

The coins were physically the lightest weight coins ever minted by the United States, weighing only 4/5 of a gram and with a diameter smaller than a modern dime and only slightly greater than the smallest gold dollars. The silver coins were known as "fishscales" because the silver-copper alloy had a maddening predisposition to discolor and turn dark.

Once the cost of a postage stamp fell to two cents, the three-cent coin fell out of favor and it was minted for the last time in 1873. It remains the only American coin ever minted for the purpose of buying a stamp.

40% silver half dollar
http://coinspecifications.com/wp-con...alf-dollar.jpg
In 1965 Lyndon Baines Johnson took the United States of America off the silver standard. Also, silver was no longer included in newly-minted dimes and quarters (which became copper-nickel clad), but remained in the half-dollar (but reduced from 90% to 40%). The older Franklin halves of 90% silver were quickly removed from circulation by collectors and hoarders, and since the public now hoarded silver coins, most of the 90% silver 1964s, as well as the 40% silver 1965-1970 halves, saw little circulation as well. By time the Kennedy half dollar became regular copper-nickel clad in 1971, many banks and merchants were already used to no longer stocking and using the denomination as they were prior to 1964. By continuing to mint only the half dollar with silver between 65 and 70, circulation of the coin was nonexistent, because they were hoarded for their silver rather than spent. By the time the half was reduced soley to clad status in 1971, it was too late as the public, banks, and merchants had gotten used to circulating coinage without a half dollar, and it has never come back since.

Coin descriptions courtesy of wikipedia, essortment.com, and myself.