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Not sure where or when I got these. But they are ASE's in all respects except that where the date should be is a 4-digit serial number.

Everything else is the same as an ASE.

So I guess these are just good looking silver rounds? I have 13 of them if someone wants them.

Maybe Chinese fakes? Have you done any tests to ensure they really are silver?

Nah, if they were faking them then they would just use a regular date. These have a clunky serial no. My dealer says they are just nice rounds, not ASEs.

Interesting. Do they have any type of private mint symbol/mark, or is the serial number the only thing that differentiates it from US Mind ASEs?

Doctor Steuss wrote:Interesting. Do they have any type of private mint symbol/mark, or is the serial number the only thing that differentiates it from US Mind ASEs?

The only difference is the serial number is where the date should be. I probably bought them from someone here a decade ago; I have a vague memory of buying some rounds and receiving these instead (lagniappe, not a rip off). I had these on my list as ASE's. When I went to sell them I checked the dates because sometimes they ask, and that is the only difference.

I do have some Golden State Mint rounds and these were as nice or nicer, except for the date thing.

There must be more things different than the lack of a date. An ASE says United States of America and One Dollar on the reverse. If someone put that on a round I would think they would get in trouble for counterfeiting.

Mark Twain's Thoughts on Lagniappe
"We picked up one excellent word," wrote Mark Twain in Life on the Mississippi (1883), "a word worth traveling to New Orleans to get; a nice limber, expressive, handy word—'lagniappe'.... It is Spanish—so they said." Twain encapsulates the history of lagniappe quite nicely. English speakers learned the word from French-speaking Louisianians, but they in turn had adapted it from the American Spanish word la ñapa. (What Twain didn't know is that the Spanish word is from Quechua, from the word yapa, meaning "something added.") Twain went on to describe how New Orleanians completed shop transactions by saying "Give me something for lagniappe," to which the shopkeeper would respond with "a bit of liquorice-root, … a cheap cigar or a spool of thread." It took a while for lagniappe to catch on throughout the country, but in time, New Yorkers and New Orleanians alike were familiar with this "excellent word."

From Merriam-Webster dot com

The majority of my language studies has been focused on Japanese. Thanks for teaching me a new word.

A lagniappe is something extra or unexpected that you don't pay extra for. The 13th donut in a baker's dozen.

Here are some pics - having trouble embedding these in a post.

https://photobucket.com/u/david3682/a/6 ... af2599bcd1

https://photobucket.com/u/david3682/a/6 ... tion=focus

No photos at those links for me, looked like advertisement for photobucket.

TXSTARFIRE wrote:No photos at those links for me, looked like advertisement for photobucket.

That is what I get, too.

Time for more coffee.