Page "Coin collecting" Paragraph 21

* Variety collections: Because mints generally issue thousands or millions of any given coin, they use multiple sets of coin dies to produce the same coin.

Occasionally these dies have slight differences.

This was more common on older coins because the coin dies were hand carved.

But differences — intentional or accidental — still exist on coins today.

Generally this is in a very small detail, such as the number of leaves on the ear of corn on the recent US Wisconsin state quarter: File: 2004 WI Proof. png.