Blank Planchets Are Much Ado About National Nothing Day

Blank planchet error coin enthusiasts have much to rejoice about on January 16, which is National Nothing Day! That’s not to say blank planchets are “nothing” – because they’re totally something!

But they managed to sneak through the minting process without getting struck by coining dies, which transform these little rounds of metal into bona fide monetized coinage. And that’s the reason we honor blank planchet errors on National Nothing Day, a holiday that was proposed for the first time back in 1972 by San Francisco Examiner journalist Harold Pullman Coffin.

The purpose of the holiday was to give Americans a reason to do “nothing” amid increasingly busier lives and as more and more holidays were making their way to calendars. What a satirical twist of irony that National Nothing Day, which wasn’t meant to be observed or celebrated, has found a busy life as “something” to talk about, as we’re doing here.

Certainly there are many ways one might honor National Nothing Day… Perhaps by taking a day off from work and staying home to watch reruns of 1990s comedy hit television show Seinfeld, starring namesake comedian Jerry Seinfeld in his self-proclaimed “show about nothing.”

Just as well, numismatists can break out their blank planchets and admire them for all they offer – an empty canvas that never had the chance to live their lives as money. Nevertheless, they live on filling their own numismatic niche as errors that leave plenty to the imagination.

Blank planchets are known among the gamut of coin types. PCGS authenticates, grades, and encapsulates blank planchets, giving collectors the opportunity to safeguard their blank planchet error coins. And while one may not always be able to pin down a date or even a type for which said blank planchet may have been intended, they are still some of the most popular error coins around and have a story all their own to share.