I just opened one of my Presidential proof sets to put in my 8184 dansco album and the edge lettering on two of them is so bad you can hardly read it. It wasn't punched in deep enough, and you need to turn it on an angle to read it, and then it's hard. It almost looks like it was partially sanded off.
Well I did check, but I did not pop any of the cases. I only tried reading one set- and did not have a problem with it. I haven't all the others but I had no problem reading the first set - really did not try the others.
I just assumed that was a common problem with the edge lettering. I bought a roll of the Washington's from the bank when they came out, and every single one in the roll had such faint edge lettering I could hardly make anything out. If the roll itself hadn't said they were Denver mint coins, I could have never figured it out from the coins themselves. In my opinion, it's a horrible place for lettering. It didn't work well in the past, and the devices used today haven't changed much at all, explaining why it's not working well today. Guy~
Actually, in Europe and elsewhere edge lettering works fine. The US Mint does have extraordinary demands for high volume production, and maybe this is part of the excuse.
Can someone explain how you can have weak edge lettering on a proof coin? The coin is struck twice and the the planchet expands against the collar hard enough to form flat square edges and possibly even wire rims. This means the metal is forced against that collar as far as it can go. That means the lettering MUST be forced into the edge of the coin as far as it can possibly go. How can you get weak lettering from that? The only way I can think of is if they use the collar SO LONG that they manage to wear off the lettering from the collar. If they only use the dies for about 5,000 strikes I can't see them using the collars so long that the lettering wears away.
Strange, every roll I've gotten only said the president on the paper, not the mintmark. Is there someone other than CWI rolling the new dollar coins?