I received my palladium proof and it is absolutely beautiful. I love my mercury dimes but their beauty is somewhat diminished by their small size; but not the Pd proofs! I saw a recent pre-order advertisement for these graded proofs plus the added designation of ''early release''. The full 15,000 mintage sold out in 270 seconds and I would think only 1 or a few sets of dies would have only been needed for their probable one-day total production time. This then, would automatically make ALL the Pd coins, ''early releases'' and ''first strikes'' regardless of arrival time for grading. Besides the revenue incentive for these designations, am I missing something else?
If you think about it, any of the commemoratives that have sold out in the first day are "Early Releases" or what not. But they only get that TPG designation if they send the coin to be graded *IN* the shipping box. Go figure. Why? We know the ones that sold out on the first day, they should all be "early release" or what ever. Plus they don't know if you received the last of the production run in inventory, or the first of the production run in inventory.
Hey, Im happy for you and enjoy it as much as you can. I hope it brings you long lasting joy and pride of ownership.
What you are missing is that "Early Release" or "First Strike" has absolutely nothing to do with when the coins were made or released. All it means is that the TPG received the coin within 30 days after the Mint released them.
But these designations imply the coin was made during the early production of the whole mintage when dies are new. My point is, the pd proofs were all produced ''early'', probably on the same day.
Correct, it IMPLIES that but it doesn't MEAN that. That's why it is considered to be a marketing scam (trick, ploy, choose your own synonym). To make you think you are getting something special when you are NOT. And a lot of collectors will pay an extra premium for such slabs just because they have that label even though the coin in the slab is NO DIFFERENT from a coin that doesn't have the label. This are numismatics version of the star bellied sneeches.