New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer (search) on Wednesday obtained a court order to temporarily suspend the sale of commemorative Sept. 11 coins heavily advertised as being minted from silver recovered at ground zero.
Spitzer said the National Collector's Mint (search), based in Port Chester, N.Y., claims the coins engraved with "In God We Trust" are legally authorized silver dollars, when they aren't.
Having seen some of the advertisements myself, they are somewhat misleading, but the coins are in fact government issue, they're just not US Govcewrnment issue but issued by the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). The ads do briefly show on the screen that the CNMI issued them, and the CNMI's name appears along the rim (ie the side) of the coin but the ads certainly do not stress that point.
I do not know the truth of the "silver from ground zero claim, nor the claim as to its silver content, but the coins are government issue...just not the issue of the United States Government.
If you're not paying attention to the advertisement you might well be fooled into thinking the coin is a US Government issue.
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