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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;cladking, post: 7954392, member: 68&quot;]I believe it was in June of 1976 that the mint reinterpreted the authorizing law for the 40% bicentennial coins. They had interpreted it to mean they could strike up to 14,000,000 sets until July 4, &#039;76 but sales were far lower.&nbsp; Then they suddenly came to believe they had to make 14 million sets.&nbsp; With no time left to make all these they ran off the remainder on high speed presses and the coins were unceremoniously dumped into 55 gallon steel drums for later assembly into sets.&nbsp; These poorly made coins were then manhandled so most acquired scratches. </p><p><br /></p><p>These sets remained on sale until 1981 but sales were very poor and there were even poorer repeat orders because the sets were so poor.&nbsp; When silver spiked in 1980 it was briefly possible to buy these sets at less than melt value but most of these were quickly melted. </p><p><br /></p><p>So now we have two very distinct versions of these coins; one that is attractive and well made (though usually tarnished) and one that was poorly made, unattractive, and not often tarnished. </p><p><br /></p><p>There&#039;s another big difference between them; the high speed coins are far scarcer.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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