How much more do proof coins worth than their normal versions?

Why do I see them AS A PROPORTION more often on slabbed coins than raw? Is it "selection bias"? e.g. Those are the ones people want to move of the slabbed ones they have.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Selection bias is part of it. You're also FAR more likely to see a stock image for a raw listing than a slabbed one. Raws are also more likely to be stuck away in a tube somewhere where the true percentage of them isn't really known until they're opened

 

Eh, could be some peripheral unknown environmental factor, something in the air they're exposed to, especially if it's a controlled climate. Remember Legionnaire's Disease?

 

Swimmers in the water tanks.

 

Adult swim. Ugh. Do NOT get in the pool with any open wounds.

 

We tend to focus too much in an unfocused world. Example. Fishing, some time back. For Blackfish, around this time of year. Tautog, they call them in New England. Use green crabs for bait, a rather stinky item even when they are fresh. Everyone is catching them. Except this one lady, Marilyn, she's fishing next to me. She asks, "what am I doing wrong." I watch her for a while. "Nothing I can see. You're a good fisherman. Just not your day?"

Sure enough I catch a few more fish, she, nothing. It's cold. She opens her purse and squirts some lady hand cream goo moisturizer on her dry skin. I think, say, "Ask Tommy, the mate, to bait you up." Tommy does so, she drops it down, bang. Nice blackfish. "Tommy! C'mere." Bang. Another. I say,

"It's your hand cream, they can smell it."

The answer might be in the humidifier filter at the mint. Or further back in the supply chain. or dare I say, it is from a mixture of US Grade A homogenized milk, which someone had unfortunately shed tears over, where they make the planchets.

Call Columbo?

 

Maybe I am wandering off of the subject, but I have seen and held onto state commemorative quarters which had such a beautiful satin finish that made them seem proof-like, although by the strictest definition, they were regular business strikes.

 

Sounds pretty bad all around, and no solution in sight. What to do?

 

Wait a year or two for proofs, or avoid proofs as some options. Really it's a decision every collector needs to decide on their own for what brings them the most joy

 

unanswerable question.

They are different items

 

Even the uncirculated coins are spotting, not only proof. I have heard that improperly cleaned/rinsed planchet is at least part of the problem, if not THE problem. Once the spot is struck into the coin/blank, It's there permanently.

 

I guess you, and your logical explanation, makes sense to me.
Can you explain why it takes many years sometimes to see any signs of spotting?

 

==============================================
Note from Lemme Caution re the above precisely on-point comment:
How and why on earth the U.S. Mint ever got involved/immersed in the making of bullion in the first place would be a complete mystery if it weren't for the ultra-obvious answer: big time financial hijinks made possible by small time Washington politics as usual. For God's sake, after all, it's the PUBLIC United States Mint, not a PRIVATE bullion factory!
============================================================================================
==============================================

 

ASE's are BY FAR the most popular thing the US mint makes. In all honesty the legislation making them start doing bullion products was one of the best things they done in a long long time. A lot of collectors started out with ASEs

 

This is what I love about America...everybody gets to have their own opinion, and it's o.k. Not to mention, "One man's ceiling is another man's floor."

 

Well Sakata that might be a bit of a stretch --- LOL

 

That would depend on the coin, there are times an MS will run off from a proof coin. But not every time will this happen. I collect PF69 halves, have very few MS69 halves.