LOL - over the past few years the cents that come out of the U.S. Mint have been covered in black spots. I ended up with multiple rolls of 2012 cents today and they look much better than cents I have seen in the past. Did I get lucky or have they (the proverbial they ) changed their rinse process? Lets hope they changed the process!
+1 Lets hope they did something to fix them, it sure would be nice to be able to find a couple unspotted ones for the set without having to search a couple boxes for them.
Anybody know why they were spotted? Also, I agree with lance. Send me a roll and I'll tell you what to think
I have always felt like the small dollars have more of a coated look. In the past the black or milky spots on the cents looked like a dirty rinse. Of the three 2012 rolls I opened they looked much better than anything I have seen in the past 4 or 5 years. They pretty much look like these examples. The last photo shows what has been more representative of the past.
You do understand what I'm talking about don't you ? It seems that not everybody does. But the small dollars are sprayed and coated with an anti-tarnishing agent after the coins are struck. That has been done since 2000. So I am wondering if maybe the mint decided to try that same coating on the new cents. It's never been used on anything in the past but the small dollars. And it worked on them, so maybe .........
LOL - I know what you are talking about. Maybe that is what has changed, I don't know? The dollars still tarnish in a bad way but I believe that has more to do with the metal composition. It has been a while since I have gone through a roll of them, but I believe that they were a little spotty too.
I agree, there's several possibilities. And then maybe you just got lucky with those rolls. Buy a lottery ticket maybe
I'm kind of skeptical the mint would add to the cost of producing cents these days given that they are already money pits. I think it's more that you got lucky and found some good rolls. I know going through rolls of them in the past couple years, some were spotted worse than others in the same box. Occasionaly you'll find a coin from circulation that has no spots at all, so they are out there.
