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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GDJMSP, post: 24727031, member: 112&quot;]Here&#039;s the thing, the terms uncirculated and circulated - are the names of grades. Granted, in grading&#039;s simplest form but they are grades nonetheless. And one is determined from the other by the lack of wear or the presence of wear. Uncirculated = no wear present on the coin. Circulated = wear present on the coin. </p><p><br /></p><p>A coin being in actual circulation, which is defined as the coin being used in commercial/business transactions <u>has absolutely nothing to do with determining if that coin is uncirculated or circulated.</u> The one and only determining factor is wear, or the lack of it. And there are very good reasons for that.</p><p><br /></p><p>For example, a coin can be in actual circulation, it can be plucked directly from a cashier&#039;s change drawer which means it is absolutely in actual circulation, and yet that coin can be correctly and accurately graded as uncirculated, or MS if one prefers, because there is no wear on the coin ! This has in fact happened many, many times, countless numbers of times !</p><p><br /></p><p>Another reason is that a coin can develop wear, show signs of wear, and without ever having left the mint building ! Meaning there is no way that coin was ever in actual circulation. This wear on the coin occurs simply because of the minting process, and the handling processes the coin goes through and that occur inside the mint building. From being ejected from the press into a hopper that holds thousands of coins with all those coins rubbing against each other, to the counting process with the coins again rubbing against each other, to the bagging process with the coins again rubbing against each other, to the moving around, storing, inside the mint building. And we get to the distribution of the bags, again with all the coins in the bags rubbing against each other. And then in some cases those bags being shipped back to the mint. And later released in the GSA sales. </p><p><br /></p><p>Lastly, there is no way to prove that any coin in a mint bag was ever in actual commercial circulation, (as defined above), or not - none. The coin was in a mint bag when it left the mint building, it was shipped to the Fed, it was then shipped to the individual banks - all while still in the original mint bag. Once at the the individual banks the bags were opened and the coins removed, OR, the bags were not opened and they were simply stored in the bank&#039;s vault. And maybe opened and distributed, or not opened, at a later date. And then at some point in time the individual bank decides it has too many silver dollars so it bags up all those that are loose and ships them back to the Fed, along with other bags that were never opened. The Fed doesn&#039;t simply accept that yeah, there&#039;s a thousand coins in bag. No, they have to prove it, so the Fed then opens ALL of the bags, recounts ALL of the coins, and then bags them all up again, and only then ships them back to the mint. Who in turn also has to prove each bag contains a thousand coins,&nbsp; opens ALL of the bags, recounts ALL Of the coins again, rebags ALL of the coins again in mint bags, and then drops them in the mint vaults. </p><p><br /></p><p>Throughout this entire process all of these coins are mixed and remixed and rebagged several times. So there is absolutely no way, that anyone can ever say with even the tiniest degree of certainty that any individual coin ever saw any actual circulation. It is literally impossible.</p><p><br /></p><p>All of this is why wear, or the lack of it, is the single, the one and only determining factor for uncirculated and circulated.</p><p><br /></p><p>But the people sorting and packaging the GSA coins, they didn&#039;t know how to determine if a coin had wear on it or not. Nor did they have any way of determining the previous life history of each individual bag let alone each individual coin. So they simply looked at the coins, and using their own opinion said yeah this one is unc or no that one isn&#039;t. And the coins were then packaged accordingly. Resulting in some circ (coins with wear) being in unc holders, and some unc coins (coins with no wear) being in circ holders.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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