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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;medoraman, post: 1241525, member: 26302&quot;]I am a little lower I guess than your threshold. I would say any coin that was taken special care of in striking would be a proof. In yoru definition, it has to be a special die. To me, striking a coin on a flan that was specially chosen, and struck on new dies on purpose, would be a proof. In 1793 they didn&#039;t have the luxury of dies only for proofs, so that coin was struck from new &quot;business strike&quot; dies. The planchet is also remarkably superior to most others of the issue, so I would assume it was picked out special.</p><p><br /></p><p>Given these assumptions, I would say the 1793 cent was a proof, and therefor the first cent struck in the US was a proof, (it was an Ameri. variety). The problem with MY definition is that most of the time it would be unprovable that a coin was struck special ON PURPOSE. Therefor, its not a workable, every day definition for most collectors. I would even argue proofs were made in ancient times, as there are certain issues that have perfect flans and are struck multiple times from fresh dies as special presentation pieces.</p><p><br /></p><p>Chris</p><p><br /></p><p>Edit: Btw Doug, would the coin necessarily need to be struck more than once? I am simply asking, how would you feel about a definition that simply said, &quot;The coin is struck from the best dies, the best flans, and struck as well as the mint is capable, with the intention of creating a special coin&quot;? To me that is bottom line what a proof is supposed to be, the best example the mint is capable of, regardless of methodology. If this includes multiple strikings in certain periods to distiguish them, that is fine, but I simply think someone should not get locked in to how they make them today versus how they may have been produced in the past.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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