| In or about 1967, General Motors received a contract from the United States Mint to test a new method of cent production. This new process involved the minting of cents on a large roller press with multiple dies in an effort to mint larger quantities of cents at a faster rate. During the testing, General Motors used dies designed by Frank Gasparro with a young female head on the obverse and nonsensical lettering and numbering on both sides. The obverse of each of the coins made during these tests is also marked with a number and a letter corresponding to the position of the die in the press. These pieces are listed in the Pollock reference on United States Patterns and Related Issues and are cataloged as P-4060 and are quite popular with collectors of patterns and collectors of cents.
This example of the General Motors Roller Cent Test Piece has been graded MS65RB by NGC. The coin is marked with “15” and “L” on the obverse, meaning that it was struck by the 15th die on the left side of the press. Very few of these General Motors test cents survive in gem condition and/or with any appreciable amount of original red color. This example is in excellent condition with much of its original red color remaining on both sides. The fields are also slightly prooflike in appearance. There are also no major hits, marks or other distractions of note. The holder itself does have some scratches in the plastic which unfortunately show in the images. An overall amazing gem example of the popular General Motors Roller Cent with lots of original red color.
Because of the difficulty in capturing the overall look of the coin in a single image, I have also included a short high-definition video of the coin towards the bottom of this listing in an attempt to give you a better idea of what this coin will look like in hand. Please note that you may need to adjust the video quality to 1080p and may need to increase the size of the video to full screen in order to see the coin in maximum detail. |
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