I picked up an America the Beautiful 2010 platinum edition set today with 5 quarter locations. and when i got home i noticed that the case was open and you could just swap out the coins if you wanted to. Are there supposed to be any nicks on these platinum coins? How can you even tell if they're platinum coated? I didn't notice the case wasn't sealed when i looked at them or i wouldn't have bought them i don't think. I'm fairly new to this, but most of these sets come sealed right?
Here's a couple of quick pics, i just can't seem to tell by looking at them for some reason, i don't know.
Well the US Mint does not sell a "Platinum Edition" set so I'm assuming you bought these from some 3rd party vendor. I myself wouldn't have bought something like this because if it does have platinum then the plating would be extremely thing like when state quarters were being gold plated. Given that the case wasn't sealed I'd say there may be quality issues. I'd have to say that unless you got this set for free you were probably overcharged. I'd stick to buying from the US Mint to begin with and depending on what you want to collect you can ask on the forums about reputable dealers.
Well considering these are just regular circulation coins that have been plated they could very easily have had nicks all over them before they were plated. Depending on how they were handled after the plating they could have acquired nicks after the plating too. As to how to tell if they have been plated with platinum, you might try putting Hydrochloric or nitric acid on them. Platinum will be unaffected (unless there are breaks in the plating.) but most other metals will react to the acid. A word of warning. A few years ago (when the metals were much cheaper) Consumer Union decided to see just how much gold, silver, and platinum was actually on these plated quarters. The silver had a few cents worth, the gold was maybe a dollar, and they couldn't find a trace of platinum on the platinum plated coins. And Slippinin, you also need to remember that the government is not making these plated coins. They are just altered coins that were plated by a private company after they left the mint. As alltered coins they have absolutely no numismatic value whatsoever and are only worth 25 cents apiece.
Ah, thanks for the help, i didn't know any of that actually. They came in a nice package with a certificate of authenticity (of course the container was open so that's void as far as i can see), but it doesn't say us mint anywhere on it, so yeah, i'll have to watch for that, they were only a few dollars anyway. The edges are a solid silverish color and don't look like a new quarter edge. I think there's 56 coins total in the set, i doubt i get anymore. Luckily the other stuff i got were proof sets from the mint. Just so i don't have to start another thread on those, those proof coins are supposed to be fairly flawless right? I got a 1983 proof set and the penny in it has a couple of big die breaks and some other stuff that looks like die damage after i looked at it a bit better. How unusual is that?
Sorry about the random posting, been running around here and there. Here's a couple of pics of what i was talking about, the first 2 are the set, on the third you can see the one die line going from the rim to the edge of the building, the 4th you can see the other die line starting at the A in STATES and making like a slash through to the 2nd U in UNUM. You can also see some of those rough die spots down above CENT, although you can't see those very well in these pics. Had a heck of a time getting some of these you could even see them in, if you can't see what i mean i can get a couple more.
Completely normal die breaks (or maybe a strikethrough, tough for me to be 100% sure), and not particularly rare or valuable. Regardless they are neat to look at!
Definitely cool to look at, there's actually a lot of those little die bumps that you can't see in that pic and 3 or 4 smaller lines and another shorter thick line like the others in AMERICA, all shiny. It's a reason i think i couldn't get a clear pic, the light reflects on it weird so it's like you can't see the whole thing even though it's there because of the way the light shines on it. I'll probably try and get a better one and mess with some light sources to see if i can get a clearer pic of the whole thing later on. I just for some reason thought the dies they used were all new and checked really good on those proofs, i guess not so much huh? :smile
