James Monroe Presidential Dollar Error Update

Just before the release of the James Monroe Presidential Dollars, Coin World reported that thousands of Monroe Dollars had been struck on State Quarter planchets. According to a statement subsequently released by the US Mint, all of the errors had been recovered and returned to the Mint. Despite the statement, there was still some discussion about whether it was possible for one or more of the errors to escape notice and reach circulation.

It has now been just over one month and no one has come forward with news of the discovery of a Monroe Dollar wrong planchet error. However, there has been another type of significant error has been discovered, first reported by Susan Headley on About.com:Coins.

The error was a so-called "Faceless" Monroe Dollar. This error is a coin blank that was never struck, but passed through the edge lettering machine. NGC certified the error as a Monroe Dollar since the edge lettering includes the date 2008 and no other Presidential Dollars had been released in 2008 at the time of submission. This article from NGC includes more information and photos of the error coins.

Notably, the Michigan collector who discovered the error had searched over 20,000 Monroe Dollars to find this one specimen.

Will any of the Monroe Dollars on Quarter planchets be discovered? I am still inclined to think that it's possible that a few might have escaped being recaptured by the Mint. The potential for a discovery certainly keeps things interesting.