Unique Bullion Coin in 25th Anniversary Set?

I agree with fishsoup. Here's a '05 bullion ASE, this was before they ever had a burnished finish. I don't see much difference between this one and yoyo's bullion 25th set coin.

 

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If he used any sort of flash, absolutely. Silver is a very reflective material.

 

After reading some of the posts that followed mine, I now see that I underestimated the value of the three remaining coins and the case. Perhaps there still remains an arbitrage opportunity for buying up these cannibalized sets with the potentially unique bullion coin and nice cases which may prove to be collectibles in of themselves over time. If and when the bullion coins are recognized as a variety, any chance of profiting from them will of course have passed. I think the great thing about this forum is that it allows people to share their opinions, knowledge and experiences with others. I learn something almost every time I read a new thread

 

I get what you are saying but the differences are significant enough to make the case even with those considerations- it is clearly a different manufacturing process.

 

All three pics were taken employing the same lighting technique......two verilux goose neck desk lamps positioned at 10 & 2 o'clock.















There is a difference and I can tell that difference with the coins in hand.

 

Good pics Ken. They show the differences in the details between the two coins. Look at the details in the lines on Libertys skirt and also in the details in the eagles feathers. There's a marked difference between the bullion versions and the mint marked ones.

 

I thought this thread was to determine if the Anniversary Bullion is different from the common 2011 bullion?

 

As far as I'm concerned, that bullion eagle in the 25th set (mine) looks the same as the bullion eagle I inserted in my Dansco back in April of this year.

 

Very nice pictures, but the one in your Dansco would also be nice to see since it is the one which this thread is comparing.

 

There is a lot more variation among bullion coins than there is among uncirculated versions. Bullion coins are struck faster at lower force and the die are used much longer. In addition to using burnished planchets, the die for uncirculated coins are specially prepared and higher forces are used. After striking, uncirculated coins are treated like proofs, handled individually. While Tom Jurkowsky made it absolutely clear that all of the bullion coins in the sets were struck in SF, he did not say if they had been struck specifically for the set or pulled from stock. Based on what appears to be normal production variation, they were probably pulled from stock. When the die are new, bullion coins do appear a lot like the uncirculated coins except for the previously mentioned lower detail caused by lower strike forces. However, even these coins, if circulated, would lose their satin appearance much faster than an uncirculated coin would. A large part of the satin finish on the uncirculated coins is imparted deliberately from the specially prepared die surfaces and is "deeper" than the finish on the bullion coins.

 

This is great news! Time to revisit our old 2011 W-less versus S-less ASE discussion from earlier in the year:

http://www.cointalk.com/t182809/

Some threads never die.

TC

 

I will post mine too in case they help. Bullion, S, W in that order

 

I learned alot from that link. I especially liked the animated .gif of the two in post #84. One was well defined and featured an opened beak and a cresent line which extended from behind the eye to the bottom of the eye. The other was "weak" and had a closed beak and a plain smooth eye socket. Even Marty Feldman could see these are two different coins.

 

Finally got up the nerve (and found some clean white cotton gloves) to remove a 25th Anniversary "Bullion" no-mint-mark coin from its capsule (center coin) and surround it with six common 2011 Bullion (S) BU coins straight from a monster box. The camera lens was set at 85mm, 4 overhead 150w lamps, no flash, and no computer manipulation other than cropping the outer edge.

 

Always loved Marty. Danged pity he left too soon.........

 

Don't forget that along with all of the other variations, die are replaced on a fairly regular basis and even with modern production techniques, there are differences from one die to the next. I don't know exactly how long the average die pair for bullion SAEs lasts, but even if we give it an optimistic 100,000 coins, the west Point mint will use up more than one die pair every day this year. The 2 or 3 million SAEs that were minted at SF in the first run this summer clearly went through more than a handful of die sets. Everything from early die state to late die state coins are minted every day. Also, you would need a fairly large sample size from the two mints striking the bullion coins, and need to do an analysis that shows two distinct populations before concluding that you could even begin tell the mint of origin by looking at an individual coin. In the end, you probably can't. Even if two populations really exist, they probably overlap enough that it would not be statistically possible to say with any certainty where an individual coin came from. Traceable provenance is really the only way to tell, whether guaranteed by an labeled encapsulation or some other means, like the ones in the 25th anniversary sets, which have the published statements of Tom Jurkowsky.

 

I see it, vaguely... but I see a difference.

 

So, would these get a different (lower) grade than the more shiny ASEs?

 

Thanks for explaining the life of a die. I found other important aspects of stamping coins one of which is all dies are turned on a CNC machine from a computer program. The mint's 1908 engraving machine was replaced in 2008. Therefore the differences from one die to the next has to be small. I believe the weak link is inspection. http://www.usmint.gov/faqs/circulating_coins/index.cfm?action=inspecting. If Quality Assurance is still in the dark ages at the mint, error coins and different populations are still quite likely to occure from wearing of the dies.

In another link http://www.coinworld.com/how-coins-are-made/, visual inspections are confirmed. This really surprises me since Lasers are employed in cutting the dies and not with the inspection of the finished product.

 

Since it wouldn’t be the first time statements from the Mint are wrong, we need experts who can analyze coins and determine which type of dies they came from. They should be able to determine if the 25th bullion coin is from a bullion die or an unc die or received some other special preparation.

Last night I compared a couple of my 25th bullions to 25th uncs and saw no difference in strike detail or the surfaces at 10x.