FlyingAl

I’m not quite sure how else to explain it other than my OP post over there. It’s like they have no incentive to understand it and just go right back to “it’s a strike issue”. Any ideas? It seems they are using the grading standards for the eras before and after 1936-42 proofs. I see this era as having its own grading standards because of how much different the finished coins look when compared to the other eras - mainly detail. This may or may not be true, I have no idea, but the grades seem to support it. A lot of specialists in the series know that coins with detail are superior to those without, and this was caused by the over polishing of dies. I think it’s time the grading standards reflect this rather than ignore the facts as they stand and stop confusing collectors. It’s not strike, it’s the dies.

It seems that the folks ATS are having trouble distinguishing true strike weakness from missing detail. As such, they keep saying that missing detail is strike weakness that should detract from grade. I have stated that the TPGs don’t deduct for missing detail, and provided many examples of such. I also stated that very very few of these proofs show true strike weakness, but they don’t seem to understand these points. They keep going on about the weakness that isn’t there.

Maybe more of "A History of the Mints of the United States". I do like how FMTM stays more focused on the mints themselves and not the surrounding events, but a book that combines them could be fantastic... I like the idea Hoghead!

Why was this proposed? Was it a reaction to the South taking the mint and the North didn’t want the coins they minted to be legal tender (similar to the Hawaii notes)? I don’t know if these timeframes line up though.

Roger, Done, edited my post. I’ll go find those auction listings! Edit: found the listing at HA and posted it ATS, it’s the best way to share that information I think, and there’s lots of it!

No problem, I would have commented sooner but the errors just didn’t seem egregious enough until I noticed the reverse didn’t match. Where were these molds discovered? It seems that almost no information exists, and so I wonder who cared for them over the years.

Woods, All of what you termed die erosion is almost certainly over polish created in the polishing step of proof die production, and addressed in my original post. RWB explained why we know this - the normal circulation dies would have also showed it, and they don’t seem to. VKurt, I agree that mint directors often have no numismatic knowledge at all. I think this is due to the position being given out as a political opportunity rather than choosing someone who wants to do the job, and as such things just don’t line up like you’ve said.

Posted ATS, hope that helps. If you have any other info regarding the reverse pictured in particular and the 1917 revisions, I think that would be great to hear.

Leeg, Thanks for posting that letter! This was the response that the mint sent out regarding the full mirrors and as we all can see it doesn’t answer the question at all. By 1936 all of the dies had been corrected so that the basining was not the issue and the die curvature was not the issue with the polishing as is shown on my post. It seems that Director Ross just took an excuse and used it instead of finding the actual reason and now we as collectors today get the opportunity to find that reason, and I’d say we did as well.

Personally, I think this is fantastic. If the rest of the market wants to buy a coin that's been graded a high number rather than have an attractive overall surface, I will be there to snap up those "low grade boring coins" at pittance prices. It's all knowledge really when it comes down to it. I cannot say how many images of PR68 coins that I have seen and the first thought that comes to mind is either "what happened to those dies, the detail, is gone" or "that thing is UGLY" (referring to heavy haze seems the TPGs don't care if a coin is hazed over as long as it's free of hairlines). I wish this was fixed. For a coin to grade above PR65 it should have full detail or near to it, and as such I doubt that many proofs from this era would achieve a 68 grade. Oftentimes strike plays a role in grade for circulated coins, why does the detail on these proofs not play a role? It should more than the circulation strikes, as the purpose of proofs at one point was to see how a coin would look if it had full details - essentially to check the dies. If a proof does not fulfill this purpose in some way, then why should it grade as nearly perfect? It should be graded as inferior to an example that does have full details, just as is done with circulation strike coins. My YN essay topic for the ANA contest was the cameo proofs of 1942, and when I was writing it I was able to develop a sense of just how undervalued these coins are. They are much rarer than the market will ever let on, and as such the prices remain so low it's laughable. Some of the rarest coins in the series can be bought for half, quarters, eighths, or even sixteenths of what a high grade over polished example goes for. It all goes back to knowledge. Do you want to buy the coin with contrasted devices, full details, and deep mirrors or the coin that has no hairlines, but the detail is obliterated and it's hard to make out the small details that should be there on a proof? (back again to grading standards) It blows my mind that the market chooses the latter, and it does so so overwhelmingly that there's no contest at all. It turns the power to the buyer. I doubt that today anyone here could go out to an online auction house or Ebay and find a 1942 proof quarter like the one I posted earlier. Why? I spent two years looking for a coin like that and it has had no equal come up in that time that I have seen. But I can guarantee that in the coming month multiple 67 or 68 examples will appear and go for multiples of what I bought the 1942 for. I think I come out ahead in this deal, although the market yet fails to recognize this. The smart buyer of 1936-42 proofs does what I call "die matching". They go onto CoinFacts and they find the best detailed coin out there, then find die markers for that specific die pair and die state. When they go looking for a coin to buy, they can therefore find a coin struck by the same dies and therefore find one with superior detail, or contrast based on the die pair they initially chose. It takes time to do this, and a lot of it, but the final collections show just how much time went into it and although the coins are often lower grade, they are far superior (in my opinion) to a set of over polished and bland 68s. I'm on my third year of putting together a set of 1942 proofs, and I'm down to just the silver five cent piece. I've had a few trial and error learning experiences, but none were very severe, just not up to my current standards. I replaced a few coins, but they are still pleasing although not as attractive as my current coins. Eventually I understood that I need either full details, color, or contrast (hopefully a combination of the three) to have a beautiful set. My set's number 30 something if I remember correctly, but I feel that when compared to other higher ranked sets it may be overall more pleasing. It's hard to know for sure, so few top sets actually have images for some reason. It's sometimes frustrating to see just how misunderstood this series is. Books like Roger's really help (if Vkurt and Roger agree that something should be done, it's a big deal ), but there's still so much to be done. I fear that unless the grading services see how the standards need to change nothing will. But how often do grading services change their ways? (last time I've heard of this being done was with the Cameo and Deep Cameo designations). Just my opinion. Perhaps I can make something change if I keep pushing hard enough.

Definitely rotated, that's an amazing coin!

This is very true. An example of such a coin can be seen below. It's a PR65, an average coin based on 1942 grades. I paid a pittance of $90 for it, and it shows better details than many 1942 proof quarters. This can be seen based on the eagle's tail fathers, full detail on all lettering, and some contrast being seen throughout. (Please note that contrast does not necessarily mean good detail, unless it is shown on the low points of the relief throughout the design. In contrast, this PR67+ below shows much weaker detail on the eagle's tail feathers, wings, and lettering. It would cost me around $700 today. This all goes to show that a lot of the best detailed and attractive coins aren't PF67s, 68s, or 69s. They are often 64s, 65s, and 66s. I have a stunning 1942 Lincoln cent in 64CAM. I would take that any day over a severely over polished 68RD example because it shows what proofs should - full details and what the designer wanted the finished coins to look like. It's a shame that many of the collectors of this era compromise on detail for higher grades. The detail that proofs should show and the reason proofs are struck is therefore lost on many of the top sets, and those with lower grade truly stunning examples go unnoticed.

You have a few really nice coins in there, I'm particularly fond of the 1939 in 67*. Quite a spectacular example that shows what the dies looked like if they were not so over polished that the detail was degraded. The reverse unfortunately does not have this same characteristic, but the obverse is very nice!

There are plenty of threads out there that can help you identify what makes a proof special. Go find those threads and answer these questions as they relate to brilliant proofs from the 1950-1964 era: 1. What makes a proof die special? 2. What is the difference in the striking of a proof vs. a circulation strike? 3. How are proofs sold to collectors? (Hint: you can have two answers, relating to how they were packaged) 4. What qualities should a proof coin exhibit? (Hint: Surface and strike characteristics ) Once you can answer these, tell me then which of your four coins you think are proofs. You should be able to easily tell, but if you take the time to answer the questions, I will verify your answer and tell you which coins are proofs.

The 1937 has slightly more detail, though not much. This coin is support for possibility number one in my post and aligns with relief reduction. The best coins of this series have a combination of the following: 1. Full detail 2. Color- not haze, but nice attractive original toning 3. Contrast 4. Deep mirrors All of these can be found independent of numerical grade, and therefore a lot of lower grade coins can often be found with more eye appeal overall than some PF68s. The more coins there are in a grade level the more likely it is that some of these gems exist. This is why many CAM coins are lower in the grade scale when compared to non-CAMs.

The coin looks polished, which would mean the highest grade it can get is a Details grade. 100% not a 65.

Well this is the reason I said that the whole position only applied to the silver proofs. It’s unfair to compare the cents and nickels because there is not a fair way to compare a change in polish technique when the early proofs weren’t polished in 1936 because they were satin. However, the silver proofs were always polished so we can analyze the difference in polishing techniques during the year. If you had two different halves, quarters, or dimes from early and late 1936 then you would notice more why I was talking about, and that is why I used half dollar images. 1936-1942 proofs are a place where if you know what you are looking for, you can get truly fantastic coins for the same price as absolutely ugly ones. You have to put grade aside at times to achieve this though, as for this series grade oftentimes does not relate to the most attractive examples IMO. Also, the matte proofs of 1914 were of higher detail and a different proof production process than the satin proofs of 1936. The hubs had more detail from less use so it is also unfair to compare the amount of detail between matte and satin proofs.

The detail itself is changed for the brilliant coin, due to the polish. Look at the front tuft of grass on the mound and you will see it is nearly gone on the brilliant proof coin whereas on the satin proof coin it is fully and completely there. Satin proofs were struck nearly identically in comparison to the brilliant proofs, the difference was that they were struck once with new dies at high pressure in a medal press. This created noticeable differences in detail due to the higher pressure, slower speed, and use of a hydraulic medal press. I will say that there is very little optical illusion. I could find a colorless satin proof and show you the same things as I did with the toned one, because it will have better detail. I have yet to see any brilliant proof from 1936 that has detail that nears that of a satin proof from 1936. Hope this answers your question!

Well, let's take a look at the nickel. It has weakness on the reverse in all of the bison's legs, mane hair, and ground. The obverse has weakness in the neck, nose, and eye area of the Indian. Look at the satin proof I posted below and you'll see right away how apparent the things I pointed out become.

In a recent conversation with Roger Burdette about a thread that I had recently posted at PCGS, a very in depth and informative discussion ensued and we both agreed that the end result and opinions would be beneficial to share. This is going to be a long one, there’s a lot of details to go through. The topic was to the cause of the frequency that the mint’s proof dies 1936-42 were over polished, particularly in the year 1936. Firstly, I’d like to state that no conclusions can be proved for certain by mint documents that we currently have, but the opinions are very likely to be what really happened. A lot of this post is opinions, as documentation is really lacking. A few sets were preserved with Satin proof coins contained in them, which is how we are able to tell with a degree of accuracy what the silver denominations looked like earlier in the year vs. later based on the knowledge of when satin proofs were struck in 1936. I cannot prove that the images of proofs that I post are from the times I state, but it is likely based on what others have observed and relayed to me, particularly Roger. The dies for proof coinage from 1936-42 were often polished to the point where the design detail would be severely degraded, in extreme cases the design on the finished coin would be so degraded that circulation strikes retained more of the design elements. Mint documents do not give us an insight into the cause of this problem, so there is an opportunity for collectors to form conjecture on what really happened. 1936 in itself provides an opportunity for us to look into two different types of coins in the year - those struck early in the year when satin proof cents and nickels were being produced, and those struck later in the year when all coins were brilliant. It is of note that all silver proof coins in 1936 were intended to be brilliant - there were no satin proofs of any denomination higher than five cents in this era. One major event that happened between these two time periods of when satin proofs were struck (early 1936) and when satin proofs (late 1936) were not struck is that collectors complained that the surfaces of the proofs struck were not distinct enough and therefore they were dissatisfied with the proofs. They did not just complain about the satin proofs, but also the brilliant proofs produced in early 1936. Their main complaint was that the mirror like fields were of inferior quality to those of 20th century proofs. This comes into play with later letters in the year where the collectors of 1936 wrote to compliment the mint on improved quality of the finished proofs - particularly reflectivity of the coins. A note: The proofs referenced here on out are only the silver proofs- none of this refers to satin proofs produced in 1936. Those proof coins produced earlier in 1936 often bear good detail with duller fields. While there are no mint documents to support the following, it is likely due to the fact that the planchets were unpolished, thereby resulting in the mirror die conforming to the average surface of the planchets- a dull mirror. Engraver John Sinnock had no idea how to produce the proofs as they were previously, so it was a trial and error process. It is likely that in early 1936 he did not realize that the planchets as well as the dies needed to be polished for a full lasting mirror surface for the run of proof coins. As such, he likely never did polish the planchets in early 1936 leading to a duller surface. It is of note, however, that these coins bear oftentimes better details - suggesting that the dies were not over polished as much in early 1936. This could have been because the mint viewed the duller proofs as distinctive enough, and not knowing better until collector letters came in, continued to produce proofs with unpolished planchets and dies that had mirrors that conformed to the planchets - in a word, dull. An example of such a coin is below: It has nearly full details on the low points (flag, hand, eagle's feathers, sun's rays) and weak reflectivity. The late 1936 proof coins show oftentimes better reflectivity - once again coming back to the planchets. Engraver John Sinnock likely managed to polish the planchets in late 1936 which led to increased reflectivity on the planchets and also reduced the number of repolishes needed for a die to have a mirror surface. One would then, logically, assume that the dies would maintain more detail due to the lowered need for repolishes, and the mirror reflectivity would increase while the detail remained the same or better. However, this is not the case. Late 1936 proof coins are characterized by deeper mirrors and oftentimes severely decreased detail when compared to the early 1936 proof coins. Here is an example: It has nearly obliterated low point detail, with very nice reflectivity. It is also of not that this coin appears to have some contrasted devices on the high points, which suggests that the die pair was likely in its initial polish stage, and has Riley not gone through any repolish cycle - that means that it suggests that that too many repolishes was likely not the cause of the degraded detail. This leads to the question - why? Why does the detail of late 1936 coins decease when it should have remained the same or better? One main factor that plays a role was how the mint was playing with the relief of dies in the 1930s and it was trying to lower it to presumably increase the longevity of circulation dies in the press and by relation the amount of coins produced by those dies. Since proof dies are circulation dies that were polished for this era, they suffer the same lowering of relief and this likely played a large part in the polishing (accidentally) of relief for proof dies. Here is a chart of such changes as Engraver John Sinnock recorded them: It is of note that the 1936 dies in this chart are very similar in characteristics to each other, only the last column is different. Therefore, it seems unlikely that the changes in relief in the 1930s caused the drastic change in detail between early and late 1936 proof coins. However, it could very well and likely did play a role in the changes in over polish between 1936-37 and onward. In the discussion, four main possibilities arose to answer the question of why such a drastic change in proof die detail occurred in 1936. In order of likelihood that they happened (my opinion, not necessarily Roger Burdette’s, although he did help me form some of these possibilities with his opinions), here they are. 1.In late 1936 only, the dies were intentionally over polished to fit collector concerns as a direct result of collector letters about the coins not being very different from circulation strikes. This led to the relief being intentionally polished in late 1936 only and the resulting changes in relief from 1937 onwards account for the over polish in those years. The letters had no impact on proofs produced 1937 onwards and all over polish can be accounted for by the relief changes and the Engraving Department workers' error in polishing. 2.That as a direct result of the letters from collectors in 1936 and onwards, the mint intentionally decided to over polish the dies to ensure that the resultant coins had distinct surfaces. This added an extra layer of protection (to produce brilliant coins) along with the polished planchets, but cost the dies detail. 3.Due to a change in relief and that change only, the dies suffered detail loss due to the inability of the workers to polish the dies effectively and maintain die detail with said lowered relief. 4.Sheer chance and luck can never be ruled out, but it remains very unlikely that such a drastic change occurred by chance with no outside influence. Here is a breakdown: Number one is very likely and is my adopted answer as in 1937 the designs maintain quite a bit better detail with deep mirrors. It seems that the relief change could easily cause the poorer detail while the now polished planchets maintain the deep mirrors. The vast decrease in detail in late 1936 would therefore be caused by the intentional polish of the recessed detail to address collector complaints. Starting 1937, the dies were not polished so intensely in the recess and any over polishing evident was a result of the change in relief shown in the die chart above. This is a combination answer of numbers two and three, which fits both Roger and my statements nicely. Number two is similar to number one except that it assumes that the dies were polished in the recess intentionally after 1936. This does not account for the slight increase in detail and this makes it more unlikely. Number three is the opposite of number two in that it assumes that only the change in relief accounts for the drastic change in detail between early and late 1936 proofs and has nothing to do with collector letters. This seems unlikely that this is true as the dies in 1936 did not change much, but they did in the transition into 1937. I of course can’t rule out pure luck (number four), but it is very unlikely that such a drastic change occurred to cause this by chance. The mint was able to maintain a high degree of consistency in its die production, shown in the consistency of the early 1936 proof dies and the late 1936 proof dies. This essentially rules out this option. This was an excellent discussion for me and it pushed my experience to the max. Roger provided excellent sources and support for his argument, and I tried to do so for myself. The main difference we had in opinion was whether or not the mint intentionally over polished dies in late 1936 because of collector letters. I said yes, Roger said it was based on the lowering of relief and other factors. This is why it seems option number one is so likely. It blends our opinions and it makes it so both opinions are right. Given there is no evidence as far as I can see to refute either answer, a blend seems to be best. As always, I intend fully to create a discussion with this post. Any opinions, ideas, rebuttals, or statements are welcome and encouraged. It’s not often that collectors get an opportunity to talk about something and try to find why the mint did something and then essentially prove it, especially when there is very little evidence. Let’s have some fun with this!

Welcome back, glad to hear you are doing better and best wishes on a speedy recovery!

It is a heavily cleaned, damaged, entirely ordinary 1901 Morgan. There is no doubling of any kind anywhere, and it is not a Hot Lips VAM either.

Here's the link: https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/1075014/3-4-union-how-big-would-that-have-been#latest

Yes, that round circle is an O. There is no "S". I have never seen an S that has the geometric qualities of an O and can be described as "a round circle". If such a thing ever exists my entire understanding of the letters of the English alphabet is entirely wrong. I'm afraid you are looking so close you are willing something into existence that does not exist. You have a mid-AU $40 coin that is completely normal in every way imaginable.

The George H.W. Bush dollar was released as a reverse proof only in the coin and chronicles set, never as a regular finish proof. Uncirculated examples can be obtained from the Philadelphia and Denver mints in special mint offerings (not issued for circulation).