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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GDJMSP, post: 6498768, member: 112&quot;]The underlined portion of your quote is incorrect. Back then dies were polished in a machine just like they are today. The machines today are a bit different, but the methodology is the same.</p><p><br /></p><p>This is today -</p><p><br /></p><p>[MEDIA=youtube]K6J_uis3JWQ[/MEDIA]</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Back then the mint used a zinc disk that was impregnated with diamond dust paste and there were several steps to polishing. At first a course paste was used, and subsequent steps each used a finer and finer grit of diamond dust paste. The final step used a paste so fine that no die polishing lines could be seen with high magnification. That is what give Proof their mirror finish in the fields. And yes I have confirmed this, it is documented in copies of the <i>Numismatist</i> over 100 years old.</p><p><br /></p><p>Today, they use the same method but the spinning polishing disk is not made of zinc anymore.</p><p><br /></p><p>Contrary to what many seem to think dies were not and are not polished by hand. Now sometimes with modern dies, there is some retouching that is done by hand, but only when the dies fail their initial inspection after being removed from the polishing machine.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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