ASE Milk Spots 1 1

[powermad5000]

On 7/23/2023 at 9:13 PM, RWB said:

That does not mean only the air in the coining room or processing and encapsulation. It means everything including the inside surfaces of capsules, peoples' breath and moisture; clothing fabric softeners and certain UV fluorescent brighteners. Dust kicked up by sound from voices, machinery. the PA system; vibrations from trucks that shake silver dust lodged on the ceiling a decade ago; acoustic tile lint or dust.

What you are speaking of in this is that the coining/minting process would have to take place in a hospital/lab clean room environment that is cleaned after every shift. I built one of these clean rooms about a decade ago at Northwestern Hospital. Nothing contaminated is allowed to go in. For a construction worker, it was surreal that the protocol was to spend two days at regular pay sitting at a table with your tool bag outside the clean room but in the adjacent prep room and use hospital grade wipes to wipe down every surface of every tool down to the smallest of sockets. Even the inside of sockets had to be cleaned out. All contractor tools going in had to be brand new, unopened, and also wiped down on the outside cases even though they were brand new. All the contractors tools that went in, stayed in, and were stored at the end of the job in a special maintenance room built into the clean room. Everything on us was covered except our eyes which had safety glasses on. We were issued a new hood, mask, full body suit, booties, and gloves every time you went into the room. If you exited to go to the bathroom, you had to discard your garb and put on new stuff when going back in. Needless to say, it took years to build this room.

I cannot see how this could be feasible to make the standard for minting coins. Neither economically, nor from a practical production standpoint, just to eliminate the spotting on coins that does not occur on every coin made and is only a bane to the collector who's coin it occurs on. Sure, it is an awesome thought to think of the possibility, but I don't see how the mint could ever hit their production numbers necessary year to year unless they built two dozen different mints or turned the existing mints into gigantic complexes with separate buildings that do just one coin such as the ASE building, the Proof building, the Burnished building, the Gold building, the Business Lincoln building, the Business Jefferson building, the Business Roosevelt building, etc.

 

[RWB]

On 7/23/2023 at 10:42 PM, powermad5000 said:

I cannot see how this could be feasible to make the standard for minting coins.

You raise some excellent and practical points.

However, it is not as difficult as you suggest. Once done, only basic maintenance is required. Each operation is confined to a separate enclosure. The coining room is the only place difficult to control, so ISO Level 4 or 5 might be the best that can be expected - once cleaned, surfaces sealed, and air flow is controlled a vacuum flush would be done each day. Struck coins go immediately under filtered compressed air onto protective carriers. The real "clean room" (level; 2, >100 μm per meter^2) is packaging which can be done in small vacuum chambers, with renewable sealed surfaces, decontamination of holders and robotic handling (as is currently done at West Point). [Multiple small chambers allow quick isolation of Q/A problems and also electrostatic environment cleaning with minimal investment.] I also recommend dry nitrogen sealed inside the capsules, if possible.

Notice that I omitted inspection. That comes after encapsulation. It is more efficient and much easier to maintain cleanliness if exposure time is minimized and transfers from one operation to another are minimized until the coin is safely under seal. Industry already uses surface imaging to detect contamination on surfaces, so this is a current technology, and not overly expensive. This is not really a human occupied clean room, so there is limited access, minimal open space. In a TPG, the original gov capsule should not be opened, but inspected for coin condition, then inserted in the company's holder. This completely avoids the chance of TPG contamination, and clearly points to the place of manufacture if any problems occur in the future.

Now this means a few bean counters will go hungry. But most of the cost is up front capital. Maintenance need not be costly, if it is well designed and integrated into the business workflow from the beginning.

[VKurtB]

On 7/23/2023 at 9:24 PM, Sandon said:

@RWB has provided yet another reason not to break modern collectors' issues out of their government packaging and submit them to grading services. Please leave them alone!

I've never removed ANY collector ASE from its Original Government Packaging, and I've never had one develop "milk spots". I have three ASE's in slabs that were gifts from others, and one of THEM HAS developed milk spots.