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Message:: [QUOTE="giorgio11, post: 1274355, member: 17094"]Identifiers for 1964 "SMS" or Specimen Coinage as Certified by PCGS Caleb is hung up with PCGS calling them "Special Mint Sets" when they should be calling them Specimen or Special strikes. I agree with him on that point, even if we differ from there on a lot of things. Personally, I think Specimen strikes is the best term. The first "sets" -- well, they were really just one of each denomination, cent through half dollar, in plastic capsules -- appeared in Stack's auctions starting in 1993, apparently from the estate of coin dealer Lester Merkin who had died recently (and the speculation is that they came to him either through Mint Director Eva Adams or another Mint employee). There were apparently 15 or 20 sets only. Some of the "sets" however did not contain the true Specimen coins: Some of the half dollars were merely business strikes, so that the half dollars are the rarest of the five denominations. Stack's recognized the coins as something special, as had Lester Merkin before them, Jess Lipka who bought most of them then, myself, David Lange (who wrote in a 1995 CoinWorld article about a 1964 "Specimen" NGC half, " ... more important are the fine die-polishing lines, arranged in broad swirls, which are evident across its entire obverse and on much of its reverse. The depth of striking is superior to that of any currency piece I've examined and fuilly equal to or superior to that of most Proofs. ..."), John Dannreuther, and lots of other seasoned numismatists. But unfortunately Stack's conjectured in their writeups that they thought they were "experiments for the 1965-67 SMS sets." Presto, the name stuck even though they may have been patterns for the 1964 coinage for all we know. But they are Specimen strikes, clearly, even though their true origins and purpose are unknown. There is no Mint documentation that any of us are aware of. I have personally examined in my career about fifteen coins, and I have within the last year bought, sold, and/or traded eight different pieces of the 1964 SMS or Specimen coinage, all certified by PCGS -- three halves, two quarters, one each dime, nickel, cent. I own a 1964 SMS 67 PCGS half in my Registry Set. Each coin is struck, I think multiple times like a proof, with details far sharper than would be seen on any business strike. But the dies, front and back on each denomination, have heavy, crisscrossing die polishing lines. I have discussed the coins with John Dannreuther on PCGS's Board of Experts and he has told me that he thinks the Mint took the business strike dies and "roughened them up" and then struck them like proofs as an experiment. The coins are easily distinguished from regular business strikes because the heavy die polishing imparts a semi- to nonreflective surface, unlike proofs (and to my eye not really that similar to the real 40% 1965-67 SMS coinage). As I pointed out to Caleb's Dad recently, you can see details on all denominations that just are not present on mere business strikes: --You can count 17 full steps on the reverse of the cent, try that on a regular Lincoln memorial business strike.--There are tiny architectural doodads at the top side corners of Monticello on the nickel that you never see on a business strike.--The hair details on the obverse and the sharp, pointed tail feathers on the eagle of the half dollar are the same, just something that cannot be confused with business strikes. Since so few examples of each denomination seem to have been struck, the die polishing lines and some other die markers are consistent from coin to coin (except for couple of outliers that I and my customers are still studying). For example, the true 1964 Specimen half dollars all show a tiny "teardrop" bit of extra metal hanging down from the crossbar of the 4. But each denomination has its own set of markers, most less obvious than that one. Bottom line, they exist, they are not business strikes, the silver coins are all 90% not 40%, they are incredibly rare, and well-informed collectors can spot them across the room because they stand out so much from ordinary 1964 coinage. Digit 4 on a True 1964 "SMS" or "Specimen" Kennedy Half Note the extra tine of metal hanging down [ATTACH]140014.vB[/ATTACH] [/QUOTE]

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