Popularity of Coins with Production Errors — In Cod We Trust

The high popularity of coins having production mistakes, including a very famous example being the Kansas state quarter from 2005 showing the words “In Cod We Trust,” happens because of many different things working together. 

These things include technical problems at the minting places, very hard rules for checking quality, the way people think about rare objects, and how prices work in the market.

The Technical Side: How the “In Cod We Trust” Mistake Happens

To understand the price of a mistake, we must look at the physical process creating it because this specific error is not a result of changing the design or a person making a wrong drawing.

It is a result of the machine getting dirty during the work.

The process of making coins in modern factories happens at very high speeds, reaching 750 or even 800 coins every minute.

To keep the machines moving well, workers use special oil.

During the long hours of work, a mix of metal dust, small pieces of metal, and too much oil can stay inside the deep parts of the machine tool called a die.

People studying coins call this problem “Struck Through Grease,” meaning the machine hit the metal through a layer of thick oil.

In the case of the 2005 Kansas coin, the oil filled the small hole for the letter “G” in the word “God.”

When the machine hit the flat metal piece, the oil stayed there, not letting the metal move into the shape of the letter “G.”

Because of this, the coin stayed flat where the letter should be, changing the phrase to “In Cod We Trust” for anyone looking at it.

The technical interest in these mistakes is about their accidental nature inside a big system.

Even with robots, the physical wear of the machines creates unique things, being impossible to repeat exactly without stopping the whole factory.

Statistical Rarity and Quality Control Rules

Minting factories in Philadelphia and Denver work using very strong rules and internal systems for checking everything.

Every group of coins goes through machines using light to see the surface and scales to check the weight and other details with a coin value checker free.

Mistakes like a dirty machine tool are usually short, because the oil might fall out or become even thicker during the next steps of the work.

The fact of a coin with a mistake entering the money system means the checking system failed at that moment.

The chance of a specific mistake, like missing one letter that changes the meaning of a whole sentence, passing through the machines and entering a bank bag is very small.

This small chance is the main thing making people want the coin.

A person collecting these things is not just buying a broken object, but a piece of evidence showing a system failure in a place trying to make everything the same.

The Language Factor and How Our Brains See Things

The “In Cod We Trust” mistake is different from thousands of other types of bad coins, such as coins with the wrong center or double-hitting, because it changes the meaning of the words.

In the world of coin collecting, there is a ladder of value. A simple technical problem, like a bad edge, has less value than a mistake that seems to “speak” to you.

The change of the word “God” into “Cod,” which is a type of fish, creates a funny effect being easy to understand for everyone, not just for professional coin people. This makes it easier for new people to start buying this specific coin.

When a mistake changes the meaning of a national symbol or an official sentence, it becomes a piece of culture.

This moves the coin from the group of “technical problems” to the group of “funny objects,” making the number of people wanting to buy it much larger.

Market Economics: Supply and Demand

The market price for coins with mistakes follows the rules of being rare. Unlike normal coins, having a known number written in factory reports, the number of coins with mistakes is never known.

• The total number of Kansas quarters having the “In Cod We Trust” mistake is impossible to count exactly. This creates a situation where collectors do not know how many of these coins really exist.
• At the start, when people first find the mistake, the price can be hundreds of dollars because everyone is excited.
• Later, when people find more coins, the price becomes stable, but it stays many times higher than the original value of twenty-five cents.
• For people putting money into coins for the future, these coins are good because their price does not follow the price of the metal itself.

The value of “In Cod We Trust” depends not on the cost of the metal mix, but on how people feel about its rarity and the popularity of this specific type of mistake.

The Role of Grading Companies Making Mistakes Official

The popularity of such coins would not be possible without big independent companies, such as PCGS and NGC, checking them. These companies look at the coins and put them into special plastic boxes called slabs.

When a grading company officially writes on the plastic box that the coin has a “Struck Thru Grease” mistake or says “In Cod We Trust” directly, it changes the coin from a “strange thing” into a “real asset.”

Having the plastic box protects the buyer from fake coins, like coins where someone tried to cut off the letter “G” after the coin left the factory.

Professional checking of the condition using a scale from 1 to 70 also adds a feeling of a game, with collectors trying to find a coin with a mistake in the best possible condition, making the demand even higher.

Classification of Mistakes and the Place of “In Cod We Trust”

To look deeply at this, we must understand where this mistake lives in the general list of coin problems:

• Planchet Errors: Problems with the flat metal piece, like cracks or the wrong metal mix.
• Die Errors: Problems with the machine tool, including cracks and things like “In Cod We Trust.”
• Strike Errors: Problems happening during the hit, like moving the center or hitting twice.

The “dirty machine tool” mistake is a “soft” type of problem.

However, its popularity is higher than many “hard” problems because of the words being easy to read.

From a technical point of view, the coin has the right size and weight, being good for use in snack machines, allowing it to stay in the money system for a long time without being seen, making it harder to find coins in perfect condition.

How Media and Digital Sites Change the Price

Before the internet, information about mistakes moved slowly using paper books. Today, sites like eBay and big auction houses allow people to see every sale immediately.

A story about “In Cod We Trust” on a big news site leads to many people searching for it and higher prices; people are eager to check their tokens with the free coin scanner app.

The coin becomes a “meme” of the coin world.

In the world of money, this creates an effect where people think if everyone is looking for this coin, it must be valuable.

This idea keeps the price high for many years.

The History of the 50 State Quarters Program

A big reason for the success of the Kansas coin is the “50 State Quarters” program (1999–2008). This was the most successful coin program in the history of the USA, having tens of millions of people involved.

Kansas was the 34th state in the series, coming out in 2005. At this time, the market was already hot, with collectors looking for different versions.

If a mistake like this happened on a normal coin with an eagle, being made before 1999, it might stay hidden from most people.

But inside this program, where every design was checked very carefully, the “In Cod We Trust” mistake was sure to be successful.

Technical Limits and Fake Coins

There is a risk of people making fake versions of these mistakes. Bad people might use tools to remove the letter “G.” But a technical check using a microscope easily finds the fake:

• During a real machine mistake, the metal surface where the letter should be stays smooth, having special lines showing how the metal moved.
• When a person removes the letter by hand, they leave scratches, breaking the surface of the coin.

The popularity of real “In Cod We Trust” mistakes is supported by the fact that their truth can be proven by science, being important for people having big collections.

Price Changes Over a Long Time

Looking at auction data from 2005 to 2024 shows how the price moves for coins in MS65 condition:

• The time of finding the coin: Being very excited, prices were between $50 and $150.
• The market stabilisation: The market had enough coins, and the price went down to $20–$40.
• Modern interest: More interest in “classic” mistakes of modern times, making prices for coins in the best condition slowly go up again.

This proves that the popularity of the coin was not just a short fashion. It stayed in coin books as a thing every collector of state quarters must have.

How the Factory Separates Bad Coins

Modern factories use big machines to remove bad coins, but these machines work well only against coins having the wrong shape.

Mistakes with the machine tool, like oil filling a letter, are almost impossible to find automatically, because the coin has the right weight and shape.

The only way to stop these coins is a worker looking at the machine tools.

Because one worker looks at many machines, missing the moment when the oil fills a letter is very easy.

Understanding this human and machine problem adds value to the coin for people liking industrial history.

The Social Meaning of Coin Mistakes

More essentially, the popularity of coins like “In Cod We Trust” shows how humans like to find meaning in random things.

Oil staying in a small hole, creating a word for a fish, is seen by people not as a simple accident, but as a funny message.

This social thing is very important when looking at why the coin is successful in the market.

Future Finds and Market Safety

As factories start using more computers and lasers to check the machines every second, the chance of such mistakes happening on new coins will go down.

This makes the existing “In Cod We Trust” coins even more valuable in the future, because they represent a time of “physical” work where real things could still beat the computers.