He placed them in a safe, not realizing they were anything special. The coins were sealed inside a cellophane envelope with a cardboard information card that blocked examination of their reverses.įive years later, in 2005, Mint officials corroborated suspicions raised by numismatist Thomas K.
Long said he ate a lot of cereal before finding the first example, but not long after the first find, he found the second example. Long, 77, who has been collecting coins for seven decades, said he and his wife, Miriam, were living in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, when he discovered the first two coins. Joppa, Maryland, collector Cliff Long told Coin World that he had the unparalleled luck of finding three of the Cheerios dollars, two during the 2000 promotional period and one recently from general circulation.
The Cheerios dollars are referred to as Reverse of 1999 since that is when that version was first used on some special 2000-dated gold versions struck in 1999, while the regular circulation reverse is called the Reverse of 2000.
The differences between the two variants of the design are seen in the eagle’s tail feathers. The 5,500 coins were struck with a reverse die produced from a different hub than that used for the regular-issue Sacagawea dollars.
