I bought four on drop day. I've closely analyzed all of them. The issue with proofs is that they show everything. If you have poor eye sight or have good eye sight and look at them in low lighting, they're basically perfect. Under strong lighting.... All four Lincoln cents have haze on the obverse fields already. The reverses not so much. One Sacagawea dollar seems to have haze on it too. The quarters I have no complaints. The dimes halves and nickels really no issues either. Was wondering if anyone else noticed haze on the Lincoln under good lighting. Mainly obverse fields. It doesn't ruin it for me but would be nice if it wasn't the case being mint fresh.
That last pic to the right of the dates, has a piece of plastic that gouged the field surface by the rim. That is a dent under a foreign object. I might send two of these back.
The bottom left is just a reflection of my finger on the plastic, not the metal surface. same with the top right AM area.
Back in 2014, I bought the limit of the 3/4oz Kennedy gold - and all five had prominent haze in the fields. I sent every one of them back. The one I bought later on the secondary market had none.
Why do you think that? What do you think is happening? Fwiw i put all four sets away and probably wont have an opportunity to return within the window after today. I guess I want to keep the other coins more than I want to send them back over the cents.
I bought one set for my collection. The nickel has some very minor marks above the duel dates. I guess that makes it a PR-68. I see no problems with the rest of the coins. At the coin club last night a friend showed me his set. The cent has a couple of very small dark marks on the rim. They might be holes in the copper plating. Given the prices the mint is charging, you would think that it could break down and strike these premium, NFC cents on bronze planchets. That might cost them 25 cents more to be very liberal about it.
I think that it is a combo of the copper plate and a later die stage. I haven't seen any of these in hand so I don't fully know, I just know that haze and late die stages start to show a haziness around the periphery's on the business strikes.
As an experiment I cracked open a set. Be advised if you open one, the black cardboard and plastic they are in is only on the front. When you pull the card out it seems like there's plastic on the back but there is NOT. The coins are just pushed up into their formed plastic capsules and held on the edges. The backs are open to the hard plastic so don't touch them. You can push on the front and they'll pop out the back. I took the Lincoln out of the plastic thinking maybe the haze was on the plastic but it was on the coin. It's very faint to see. Not as vivid as a milk spot but at certain angles and lighting you can see it. I dipped it in E-Zest and it took the haze off. It actually improved the quality of it I think. So that is an option if you're careful and rinse it off good.
Received my set yesterday. A cursory look shows the coins are all problem free, aside from the price tag. The choice of zinc is a little surprising, but they are probably keeping the bronze planchet in their pocket for a future contrived rarity.
