What exactly is "proof-like"?

VERY useful information. Thank you.

 

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Those coins in those links you provided are not business strike examples. They are SMS, specially made coins made for the US Mint sets. Business strike coins are made for circulation and require less coining pressure, no special handling or coin blanks etc. The differences can be found in the US Mint glossary, you don't have to take my word for it. Just because these so called top grading companies discontinued calling mint set coins SP or SMS doesn't mean those mint set coins are not SP, SMS.

Just a heads-up! Those examples are not circulating business strikes. They are SP, SMS coins from the US Mint sets. How the US Mint makes those coins does not get changed with how some grading companies have mislabeled them incorrectly. Check into the US Mint glossary for the differences between the US mint set SMS or SP coins and business strikes made for circulation. Melded verses well define hair banks of Jefferson is the difference. I could write a couple pages on this over-sight. Coin collectors want to find coins that match the quality of the coins made before 2005 and that's through roll hunting, not from mint sets like in the old days. Entire sets of coins from mint sets from 2005 to present can be bought on ebay for practically nothing. Why would anyone pay .50 for a US Mint Set coin when they made millions of those perfected coins?
Btw, it was a few concerned collectors who sent letters, emails to the US Mint that ultimate ended the production of those satin finish mint set coins, me included.
Cheers, Leo

 

Dis

Excellent pictured examples. Thanks

 

This is the definition that the RCM (and later, Charlton in their annual guides) has for "prooflike: "Quality of choice coins obviously superior to circulation strikes, but whose surfaces are not as bright as those of other specimen coins. Struck using selected dies and planchets and on slower moving presses than for circulation coins". Canadian collectors rue the day that the RCM, and then the TPG's, started using that designation. Clouding everything, after the "proof-like" dies were done striking P-L's, they were used for circulation strikes. I don't collect "bright and shiny", only Vicky large cent varieties, but have many friends who still argue about P-L coins.

 

Yes, in fact many older proofs, before about the 1970s often do not have frosted devices. They were not meant to really, the entire coin was prepared to have mirrored surfaces, that's why coins with CAM or UCAM designations before then often command a premium.