12 Muck-Ups That Produced Insanely Expensive Collectibles

Plenty of people collected state quarters when they were released, with the idea that the set might someday be worth a premium. So far, though, that hasn’t necessarily come to fruition — unless you’re lucky enough to get a Minnesota quarter with the “extra tree” error, a minuscule die error that you can barely see (check for the little extra shape to the right of the smaller tree in the center of the coin). In that case, you’re holding plenty more than 25 cents.

This Pikachu looks perfectly normal to anyone raised on Pokemon, but those trademark red cheeks are actually a mistake. They should have been yellow, and they were fixed promptly, but not before a limited amount of the red-cheeked versions hit the market.

You might have to be at least somewhat familiar with Magic: The Gathering to notice what’s wrong here. This card is known as the “Blue Hurricane,” because of its obvious, and incorrect, color. The color of the card’s background should match the green mana used to cast it at the top right. Thanks to the mix-up, this card can be worth over $10,000.

Currency should have a serial number printed on it. It should not have two different serial numbers printed on it. That's the issue with this unusual $10 silver certificate from 1934, and what makes it worth plenty more than face value.

A “double-denomination” banknote is known as the “King of Errors” when it comes to incorrectly printed currency. It means that the note in question has two different denominations, one on the back and one on the front. This 1882 banknote is worth either $50 or $100, depending on what side you’re looking at. Or, to collectors, over $70k.

A twist here is that these bills, to the eye, have absolutely no errors. They’re printed perfectly accurately. The error is only noticeable when you look at a pair, and realize that there are two bank notes with identical serial numbers. Obviously, this isn’t allowed, and technically makes them both counterfeit. Not that they’re worthless, since a matched pair can go for up to $150,000.

You might recognize the player on this baseball card as Frank Thomas. If you don’t, you’re out of luck, because thanks to a misprint, his name was left off the front of the card. A case of addition by subtraction, since a PSA 10 graded example sold for a little over $170,000.

It would take a trained eye to realize the problem with this card, and that’s Mantle’s last name. It should be in yellow, but thanks to a printing error, it’s in the same white as his first name. If you’ve got one, you might want to check, given that a PSA 9 graded misprint of this kind auctioned in 2022 for almost a million dollars.

This stamp contains a printing error with big-time connotations. That’s because if you notice, Taiwan, below and to the right of China, isn’t also colored in red. Something that would suggest Taiwan wasn’t part of China, a thing that the Chinese government definitely isn’t looking to communicate, through stamps or otherwise. 

Copies of the stamp have been sold for just over $1 million.

If a stamp is famous enough that non-philatelists might know it, it must be worth some scratch. Enough to be a big part of the plot line of a season of FX’s Fargo, in fact. Only 100 copies exist of the “Inverted Jenny,” named for the accidentally-upside-down image of the Jenny biplane printed on it. 

Combine what’s already an important stamp — it was used for the first regularly-scheduled government airmail service — with an incredibly rare uh-oh and you’re looking at, possibly, $2 million.

Hachi machi. The error seen on this stamp makes it one of the most valuable stamps in the world. It’s a stamp with its (intended) value, 500 mon, stamped in the center of a dragon-decorated border, but on a single sheet, the characters saying 500 mon were printed upside down. There's only a single known example of the stamp, spurring its outlandish price.

This particular misprint, afflicting a Hitmonlee Pokemon card, is called the “Cigar Roll Hitmonlee” because of the “Crown Roll Leaf” logo seen accidentally integrated into the card. It does sound like a cigar company, and that was people’s original guess, but it turns out Crown Roll Leaf is simply the company that produces the sheets of holofoil used by the card manufacturer, though the branded bits of their sheets aren’t supposed to make it into circulation. It’s thought to be a one-of-one error, and there’s no known price, since the owner doesn’t seem to have interest in selling.