I recently (few weeks ago) purchased a 1970 uncirculated mint set. I wanted to fill in that year in my mint set collection and also wanted to get the Denver Kennedy Half. I was a little disappointed when I received it because the D half had some gashes on the obverse. The coins are all sealed in the cellophane. I'm wondering if the marks were made prior to packaging or after. I'm inclined to think they may have happened when a previous owner might have put something on top. But again the coins are sealed in the cello and the cello doesn't have any such marks. What do you guys think? The gashes are on jaw line (2), behind left ear (2) and above "WE" on edge of neck (3).
Yup, mint sets were just coins issued for general circulation placed into plastic -- no additional care was taken with them, like they do with proofs. You just happened to get one with some rough contact marks.
Yeah, true. But that one wasn't. No '70-D halves were ever minted for circulation - only for the annual Mint Sets. But they were all minted in the same way that circ coins were minted.
That mark appears deep. It's typical that they are marked up a lot and only about 1.5% are fairly clean and gemmy. About 70% used to be nice chBU but over the years a lot of sets have been picked over for nice halfs and there are more dogs now. This mark might be deep enough to consider the coin a cull. It's hard to tell from a photo but very deep marks will prevent a coin from selling at wholesale prices. The coin has a little tarnish as well but it would probably disappear in acetone. It's tough to tell but there's a little PVC inside these sets and the effect usually comes off if caught early. A lot of half dollars have this but it's not nearly as common as in the '69 set.
