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During striking of the second coin in the Presidential dollar coin series, the John Adams dollar, the Philadelphia Mint showed that it was determined not to make the same mistake twice. While producing the first coin of the series, the Mint had inadvertently released hundreds of thousands of George Washington dollars before they had passed through the edge-lettering machine (see number 53). On the edge of the Presidential dollars were supposed to be the date, the mintmark, and required coinage inscriptions IN GOD WE TRUST and E PLURIBUS UNUM. No one really seemed to care, quite frankly, that the date and mintmark were missing from the coin. It did, however, strike a chord with many that the motto IN GOD WE TRUST had been left off. These George Washington dollars Missing Edge-Lettering quickly earned the moniker “Godless dollars.” The U.S. Mint must have been overwhelmed with media requests, as well as letters from the public, because they immediately issued a statement written in response to the public outcry. It read, in part, “The United States Mint understands the importance of the inscriptions. . . . We take this matter seriously.” They further stated, “As we adjust this new process, we intend to eliminate any such defects.” The challenge was that the lettering was applied by an edge-lettering machine in a secondary process after the coins were initially struck, so the Philadelphia Mint instituted a new control process to assure that the edge-lettering step would not be missed. They were successful, and the John Adams Missing Edge Lettering dollar is, by any comparative measure, a scarce error coin. Subsequent issues of the Presidential dollar coins without edge lettering are scarcer still. But the new control methods were soon found to be overzealous, as a new type of error coin would indicate. A significant number of 2007-P John Adams dollars show doubled edge lettering! This means that they were passed through the edge-lettering machine twice, which then reapplied the full edge inscription. Indeed, the controls were tight enough that coins were far more likely to pass through the machine twice than to miss the process entirely. According to some estimates, more than 50,000 Doubled Edge Lettering John Adams dollars were made in Philadelphia, while only 10,000 Missing Edge Lettering coins were made. Examples of the John Adams dollar from the Denver Mint are very scarce and only a few hundred are thought to exist. Because the orientation of the edge lettering is random, the second inscription can either be in the same direction as or opposite to the first. When the inscriptions both travel in the same direction, they are said to be Overlapped. When they are opposite, that is, when one is upside down when compared to the other, they are said to be Inverted. These exist in equal proportion, as would be expected; however, the most readable inscriptions are those that show a close overlapping of the two legends.
Garrett, Jeff; Schechter, Scott. 100 Greatest US Modern Coins (Kindle Locations 2695-2699). Ingram Distribution. Kindle Edition.