Hey all, so I'm a bit confused on this and in trying to find information it's become even more unclear to me. LOL I have some bullion coins, I like to get a few every year. There are a 2 I try to get each year and then I just grab whatever else tickles my fancy. The 2 I always try to get are - Silver Britannia and Canadian Maple Leaf. In addition I've gotten an Australian Kookaburra and a few others. My question is concerning how they are struck. Are they proof struck? I know with ASE's the mint actually sells a Proof and Non-Proof version. So that's clear enough, however with these others I see no designation and the coins I have sure do look like proofs with mirror surfaces. This is mostly just a curiosity thing mostly, I'm not trying to send these off for grading or anything, and I don't really stack them either. I'm somewhere in the middle, just collecting them cause I like them and they will always be worth at least melt value. So bottom line is, if I want to "grade" these myself for reference do I call them MS or PF? Or maybe I'm completely off base on this whole thing.
Ya maybe grade was the wrong term to use, I'm not trying to assign the sheldon scale. But i keep a spreadsheet inventory with the apx grade and I'm torn at calling it MS or PF. Which sparked my curiosity on if these are proof struck or not.
https://www.cointalk.com/threads/1989-age-1-2-oz.410176/. Check this thread out from last Saturday, if you haven’t seen it. It might change your mind. …imo…Spark
If a coin has all the hallmarks of a proof, as generally accepted, then mark it as such. Don’t forget that high grade MS can be PL…”Proof-Like”. Barring any conclusive provenance, documentation or catalog research it’s about the best you can do…imo…Spark
Here's one that I won at auction close-ish to spot. It has characteristics that we would refer to as PL or SP, but PCGS gave it a good ol' MS grade.
I don't know why I hadn't thought of that til you posted the slabbed coin - I went and poked around at PCGS and see that it's dominated by MS grades (67-70 mostly). I'm still curious about how these are minted though because they sure do LOOK like proofs with the deep cameo and mirror fields and so on. Perhaps it's just a matter of using more time and pressure than for business strikes. Interesting either way.
I'm not sure on this but I can offer some other things to think about. Proof coins are struck multiple times with polished dies. Cameo is not required. Canada doesn't officially ever strike proof coins. They strike prooflike coins, though. I imagine that these bullion rounds are well struck, once, with polished dies. But I could be wrong. Does any of this help? I don't know.
Good info either way, I'm familiar with the basics of the minting process but wasn't sure how it all shakes out in terms of deep cameos and mirror fields, etc. Apparently you can get there without needing multiple strikes. Makes sense on silver I suppose, it's more malleable than nickel
you can say that again! I’ll do it for you! It’s a multi million dollar racket! And the collectors are the tennis balls!
