This is a C&P...According to this article, the only normal Bison nickels have already been released and there wont be any in the mint sets. So, look for those high grade original Bison nickels to skyrocket! Can you imagine owning the only Original production Bison nickel in MS67 for either mint!? Not only that but now you have an additional 10 quarters for every year. More registry craze! And then there is all of the people with Albums, guess what, you now need more holes. New finish on 2005 uncirculated sets From Numismatic News by Peter Lindblad When the 2005 U.S. Mint Uncirculated Coin Set is released May 31, it’ll have a different finish. A new satin finish has been applied to the 22-coin set for the first time ever and Mint officials believe customers will notice the difference. “With the satin finish, the light is diffused on the coin surface. It’s sort of like looking through frosted glass,” said Gloria Eskridge, associate director of sales and marketing for the Mint. “On the other surface, it was reflected like a mirror.” The launch date for the set was pushed back from April 11 to May 31 to make sure the finish was perfected. Still, the release of the 2005 uncirculated set, priced at $16.95, comes three weeks earlier than the 2004 release date. “We expect the satin finish uncirculated set to be very popular and we are prepared to respond to an increased demand,” said Eskridge. The new satin finish will be applied to future uncirculated coin sets, uncirculated commemorative coins and uncirculated silver American Eagles. The Mint hopes the new finish will provide consistency for those products and help collectors differentiate between uncirculated coins in the U.S. Mint’s uncirculated coin sets and those coins in bags and rolls that have never been circulated. The new finish is achieved by striking blanks with chrome-plated dies. The dies are sandblasted by hand and then chrome plated to improve die life. The process is identical to the commemorative or silver American Eagle uncirculated manufacturing process, except the sand and bead mixture is slightly finer to achieve the frosting on the coin set. According to the Mint, this produces a more lustrous image. Included in the set are specially struck uncirculated pieces of each of the circulating coin denominations manufactured at Denver and Philadelphia. It also has four 2005 nickels from the Westward Journey Nickel series with the new portrait of President Thomas Jefferson.
All my collections are made up of coins by date and mint mark. That is it! I could care less what type of finish it has or don't have. I hope they are nice looking coins, that is all.
I don't know who told you there would not be normal bison nickels in the mint sets but I can assure you they are wrong. The Mint is planning a satin finish on all the coins but that will be done with the dies not the coins. There will be nickels in the mint sets regardless of what kind of finish is on them.
I have found nothing about this on the Mint's website, Numismatic News' website or CoinWorld's website. Perhaps it's the start of a new urban legend.
I have so many bison nickels from the Denver mint I may stop hoarding them. Oh, who am I kidding, I'm still going to horad them. I just can't seem to find any philly nickels. Hey I'm in N. Ill and it shouldn't be that tough to get coins from there. Is everyone else finding mostly Denver nickels?
Well...again I think the mint is doing what they do best...hype up coins but I'll still be getting one of these so I can keep my set up to date. I think that the mint set is one of my favorites from the mint--with the other being the ASE. Speedy
Will the slabbing companies put this variety on their slabs? If so, then yes I think high quality uncirculated Bisons may get very expensive. Search on ebay for ms 66 0r 67 and you get ZERO hits.
So now if you want an uncirculated set of business strike coins you've got a harder row to hoe. Doesn't sound so good to me.
OK...let me get this straight. We will now have three different types of coins - "proof" coins , "uncirculated" coins in the sets and coins that have "never been circulated" that come in bags and rolls. So do we now split the MS grades into different catagories, one for "uncirulated" with the frosted planchets and one for "never been circulated" with the regular planchets? Also, as a side note. The first thing that came to my mind when I heard about the frosted planchets was a scene that was set in the back rooms of the Mint - "Hey, if we frost the planchets, that will help hide bag marks and inperfections like what we're having so much problems with in the coins' fields." Yes, I can be a pessimist...
Well, this years Bison nickel has been a grave disapointment in quality. I understand what you are saying tanner...
Looks like we will see soon. Received the email today that the mint sets are being processed and expect to ship in 3 weeks. We'll see how many delays these go through now.
I agree. I know that Mint sets were always slightly different (slower presses, supposedly better quality) than normal business strikes, but at least they were close enough in the process to be “the same”. Now, we have three finishes: proof, Mint set, and business strike. In theory I would want all three, but this will get ridiculous after a while, sort of like the commems. I tried to keep up for about a year, but then there were too many so I gave up. We will see how the mint handles these new strikes. A nice satin finish would be great, but if they are going to throw them together in the hopper after striking, the contact marks might just show up more clearly now. We will see.
They've also announced capacity increases. I worry if this might not mean larger hoppers and bigger scratches. It's very difficult now to find nice clean examples of most coins in the sets and some may be impossible. We certainly don't need a source for a banged up new coin and the end of the access to good quality examples of circulating coinage. I'm not really all that worried and still hope this will be a very positive development. The mint is aware that collectors are seeking quality and surely they'll continue to try to improve the circulating coins and produce nice mint set coins. Still, I'm glad the eagle reverse clad quarter are a closed set.
I had the good fortune of touring the Denver Mint last month a few days after they resumed regular public tours. From what the tour guide said, the capacity increases are primarily from the new presses which actually turn out a handful few coins per minute, but with far fewer errors and/or problems. From eyeballing the production floor where they had a mix of old and new machines, it looked like the hoppers and other equipment aside from the presses is about the same.
