No God in Our Lives

Interesting news from the world of currency:

An unknown number of new George Washington dollar coins were mistakenly struck without their edge inscriptions, including "In God We Trust," and made it past inspectors and into circulation, the U.S. Mint said Wednesday.

The properly struck dollar coins, bearing the likeness of George Washington, are inscribed along the edge with "In God We Trust," "E Pluribus Unum" and the year and mint mark. They went into circulation Feb. 15.

Now this could be an opportunity to debate the role of faith in public life, and if "In God We Trust" violates the spirit of the first amendment or is just a little harmless nod to the Big Guy. But these suckers are worth money:

Bailey said it was unknown how many coins didn't have the inscriptions. Ron Guth, president of Professional Coin Grading Service, one of the world's largest coin authentication companies, said he believes that at least 50,000 error coins were put in circulation.

"The first one sold for $600 before everyone knew how common they actually were," he said. "They're going for around $40 to $60 on eBay now, and they'll probably settle in the $50 range."

Error coins are worth money. Once I read about a penny that had a backwards "D" for Denver Mint that was worth 100 grand. I spent years afterwords checking every piece of change for errors. So check those new gold dollars. They could be worth fifty bucks.