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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;cladking, post: 3028275, member: 68&quot;]That&#039;s true if you&#039;re looking at very high end strikes and grades but an experienced collector can separate business strikes and SMS with a near 100% accuracy.&nbsp; The problem with accuracy is two fold.&nbsp; For one there is some junk in the SMS&#039;s.&nbsp; A few of these look a lot like circulation issues and aren&#039;t much better struck.&nbsp; But this affects only about 5% of the SMS.&nbsp; The other problem is that the mint did put a few really nice coins in circulation.&nbsp; Some of these were struck at San Francisco from retired SMS dies so good strikes are very difficult to differentiate. </p><p><br /></p><p>Every year some dies get a little special handling and if any of these dies turn out any good coins they might look like an SMS. </p><p><br /></p><p>A good rule of thumb is that if it&#039;s very high grade and isn&#039;t obviously struck for circulation than it is SMS.&nbsp; I&#039;m sure this doesn&#039;t always work and have heard of people submitting coins straight from rolls and have it come back SMS but generally you really can tell the difference with experience. </p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;d warn people to be very careful with paying large premiums for business strikes since some of these may be SMS.&nbsp;&nbsp; The services always default to grading everything SMS but they could make a mistake.&nbsp; Unless a coin is obviously not SMS don&#039;t pay a big premium for grade. </p><p><br /></p><p>The SMS&#039;s are very underappreciated.&nbsp; They are some really great coins and there&#039;s something for every taste.&nbsp; While I hate the look of something like the polished die &#039;66 quarters these are really quite scarce.&nbsp; Only about 1% have this look.&nbsp; Indeed, whatever kind of look you like can be found and many are scarce.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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