Chilean Mint Boss Fired For Misspelling Country's Name On Coins

Gregorio Iniguez, the general manager of the Chilean mint, has been fired after misspelling 'Chile' on thousands of coins.

The 50 peso coins, worth around 10 cents, bear the word 'CHIIE' rather than 'CHILE'. They were printed in 2008 but apparently no one noticed until late 2009. A picture of the faulty coin can be seen HERE.

Other workers at the mint have also been fired.

There are currently no plans to take the coins out of circulations, and, according to the BBC, people have begun hoarding the faulty coins, hoping they will become collector's items.

The mint, which has seen a number of blunders in the past, was criticized in the Chilean newspaper El Mercurio as a "Dickensian factory."

Comments

[tselby]

03:58 PM on 02/15/2010

He must have had a public education in the US.

[crackajack]

04:36 AM on 02/15/2010

What about the U.S. losing money for producing the penny?!?

[RTIII]

10:16 AM on 02/16/2010

That was for the copper. Now - and for quite a few years - the US Penny is mostly zinc, also known as "pot metal." REAL pennies _ring_ when you drop them. The zinc ones have a _thud_ sound. Depressing. I'd rather the Mint introduce a dollar coin and ELIMINATE the paper one, and the penny than resort to non-valuable metals in our coin currency.
.

[AirViceMarshalPark]

02:01 AM on 02/15/2010

Did "Chiie" hire Dan Quayle?

[escribacat]

09:54 PM on 02/14/2010

Pretty sloppy, kids.

[davidwayneosedach]

11:51 AM on 02/14/2010

I imagine those rogue mispelled coins will be worth a fortune. I'll bet he's taking a handful with him!

[Emucrat]

03:03 AM on 02/14/2010

EPIC FAIL.

[LMPE]

10:41 PM on 02/13/2010

Maybe the second I was actually a lower-case L.

I wonder if anyone has accidentally written "Untied Stats" on an official document.

[AZterritory]

09:04 PM on 02/14/2010

Probably. I know my husband's secretary once wrote Department of Pubic Works on a document that went into a time capsule. Wonder what they will think in about 50 years about that.

[tselby]

03:59 PM on 02/15/2010

Is that where you go to get a bikini wax?

[InTheSouth]

10:02 PM on 02/13/2010

Just the thing coin collectors love. These coins will one day be worth more than face value. Hope the guy who was fired is able to gather up some. As with most things, stuff happens. The world goes on.

[David Rozgonyi]

02:21 PM on 02/13/2010

This reminded me... a few years ago, when Borat came out, Kazakhstan was indignant about being portrayed as such a backwards country, and then they misspelled the word "bank" on one of their new banknotes shortly thereafter! Oops!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15316714

[NANANACHMAN]

12:01 PM on 02/13/2010

WTF........................the US Mint misspelled Cinha on the new TRILLION BILL

[SaltyLassi]

11:07 AM on 02/13/2010

At first I thought the typo was the big story, but even bigger is that no one noticed for an entire year.

[HappyMarsden]

03:33 AM on 02/13/2010

Oh come on. What's the fuss? Who in the country is going to notice?

[Blitzschnell]

11:53 PM on 02/12/2010

Sarah Palin must have been in charge of quality control.

[patches12]

10:21 PM on 02/12/2010

I hope he was fired.... what the heck... how do you run a Mint for your country without being able to spell its name???

[vegasobserver]

10:00 PM on 02/12/2010

Throughout much of Latin America, the capital letter "L" is commonly written "I". This is widely taught in the schools, and it's possible that the guy who made this error literally transcribed the word "CHIIE" as written by someone who wrote it that way.