2011P(USG)-100DER-001T Trail Die Reverse

Description

Sole reverse trail die recorded for the 2011-P Presidential dollar honoring Ulysses S. Grant, designation 2011P(USG)-100DER-001T records a die alignment anomaly on the eighteenth coin in the Presidential dollar series. Don Everhart's obverse portrait depicts the eighteenth president — Civil War commanding general, two-term president, and champion of Reconstruction — while the Statue of Liberty reverse design by Don Everhart served as the common reverse for all Presidential dollars throughout the series. The Position B designation indicates the edge lettering orientation: like all Presidential dollars from 2007 through 2016, the date, mintmark, and E PLURIBUS UNUM were incused into the coin's edge, and Position B specifies the relationship between the edge inscription orientation and the obverse/reverse die alignment. Trail dies occur when the obverse and reverse dies are marginally offset from their ideal alignment in the coining press, producing faint secondary impressions that trail from design elements in the direction of the misalignment. On the reverse Statue of Liberty design, trail lines may appear extending from the torch, crown rays, or the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA inscription. Philadelphia produced Presidential dollars primarily for numismatic distribution by 2011, as the Government Accountability Office had repeatedly recommended ending dollar coin production for circulation due to massive surpluses in Federal Reserve vaults. The trail die designation 001T indicates this is the first and potentially only reverse trail die documented for the Ulysses S. Grant Presidential dollar, consistent with the more limited collector screening applied to Presidential dollars compared to heavily searched denominations like Lincoln cents. Collectors should examine the reverse under magnification with angled illumination to detect the faint trail line impressions extending from the Statue of Liberty design elements.