page_title: Mule (coin)
section_title: "Handsome" mules
hierarchical_section_title: Mule (coin) / "Handsome" mules
context_page_description: In numismatics, a mule is a coin or medal minted with obverse and reverse designs not normally seen on the same piece. These can be intentional or produced by error. This type of error is highly sought after by collectors, and examples can fetch high prices.
  The earliest mules are found among ancient Greek and Roman coins. Opinion is divided between those who think that they are accidental, the result of an incorrect combination of a new die with one that had officially been withdrawn from use, or the work of coiners working with dies stolen from an official mint, perhaps at a time when one of them should have been destroyed.
  The name derives from the mule, the hybrid offspring of a horse and a donkey, due to such a coin having two sides intended for different coins, much as a mule has parents of two different species.
context_section_description: Sometimes mints use proof dies in the production of business coins. Coins produced when an identifiable proof die is "married" with a business die are known as "handsome" mules. The details on proof coins are often noticeably sharper.
caption: A "handsome" mule. The telltale difference between the image of the reverse of these two 1958 Franklin halves shown is that the  eagle's right wingtip (seen as the viewer's left) on the proof coin has one fewer feathers.
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