You are looking for Chiie Mint not Chile Mint? Mint from Republica De Chiie? A typo error caused one engraver in Chile Mint his job. The engraver, Pedro Urzua Lizana, fired by Chile's mint for an error that led to the release of 1.5 million coins featuring the country of "CHIIE" said that his bosses deliberately covered up the mistake. The error showed up on Chilean 50-peso pieces for the year 2009. The 50-peso piece is 2.5 centimeters across, just under an inch making it difficult to immediately see on the faulty coins that Chile is spelled "Chiie."
Engraver Pedro Urzua Lizana told The Associated Press he unknowingly left off the bottom part of the letter "L" when, in December 2008, he was hurriedly fixing a minor deformity in the original mold for making the dies to stamp out the coin. The coins were released to the public last year but no one at the mint, including himself, knew about the error until a coin collector called in October to point it out. Once informed, officials at the mint fixed the stamp for future 50-peso pieces, but sent another batch of bad coins to the Central Bank without telling officials there of the error, those coins never were released to the public. His Boss Gregorio Iñiguez (General Manager of Chile Mint) and several other employees have also reportedly been sacked after the incident.
Pedro Urzúa, head franker at the Chilean mint, pleaded his innocence after it was suggested that the mistake had been deliberate. "I have been accused of having written the word "C-H-I-I-E" deliberately, but it was an error spotted by neither myself nor the entire chain of people who saw and approved it afterwards," he said.
Photo by condeorloff at flickr: Republica De Chiie 50 peso coinUrzua is suing the mint for denying him severance pay — based on what he says is the mint's false claim that he was doing work for other employers at his house, something forbidden in his contract.
After this story came out, many collector will be looking for a 2009 50 peso Chiie coin for sale. It cost someone his job but this coin also will cost a bit more then its face value suggested. I wonder how this coin can passed a spell check? And the engraver statement that he forget to put the bottom part of "L" also make no sense at all. How can he released them later with no double check himself. This is one mistake that anyone will try to avoid.
Source: BBC News, The Associated Press, Times online.
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