I recently purchased this coin at an auction on Heritage. Just opened it out of the mail and was adding it to my inventory and noticed there is no mint mark on it. I could be wrong, but I was under the assumption, all struck at west point will have a mint make lower left of the eagle on the reverse. The coin was slabbed and certified by NGC. I scan it with the app and it says it is legit by the number listed on the label. I looked around and can't find why it wouldn't have a mint mark. What am I missing? Thanks.
It's a 'bullion' coin struck as such, and therefore, doesn't possess a mint mark. Collector Eagles will possess a 'w','s' and possibly a 'd', but straight bullion coins are homeless..........but we all know they're struck at West Point.........unless, in dire times, they're sometime struck at Philly, and still lack a mint mark.
It was. They only do that when they get monster boxes that are mint sealed. When they () it like that you know its the bullion version.
So if you bought/buy a particularly nice raw bullion AE that was/is claimed as struck at WP (or any other mint w/o m-mark), you'll have no way to ever prove it, nor will a TPG if you decided to slab it unless submitted in OGP. Correct...?
You'd need to buy an intact monster box with codes that say it was struck at west point then submit the box for grading and then you'll have a bunch of slabbed bullion coins that are designated (w) and as long as they aren't cracked out it will always be what the slab says it was. Unless people lose faith in the grading company or they go out of business that is. Out of the slab its just a bullion silver eagle like all the others.
That's why the W is in parenthesis. They graded it out of the sealed monster box with the correct sharpie notation of box #s.