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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;John Burgess, post: 7497480, member: 105098&quot;]by no means a professional, just an avid reader, anyways......</p><p><br /></p><p>yes in a sense, &quot;flow lines&quot; are actually the cause of die wear or &quot;die erosion&quot;. Terms like cartwheel, starburst are descriptive of the die wear pattern on the coin. strike after strike of the blanks, under pressure of the strike, the metal flows outward radially.&nbsp; over time, the &quot;flow lines&quot; of this movement cause die wear/die erosion and it&#039;s transferred back to the die steadily strike after strike, friction.....</p><p><br /></p><p>true first strikes, don&#039;t have much in the way of these flow lines, and considered &quot;prooflike&quot;. A die set needs to be broken in to produce really lusterful flow lines considered as &quot;cartwheel luster&quot; in appearance, if they aren&#039;t present, it&#039;s more like the smooth or wavy mirror of a proof coin until the die pair is broken inand starts wearing.</p><p><br /></p><p>As the die wears on strike after strike,&nbsp; flowlines etch into the die faces and begin to wear it down. The transferred flow lines get stronger and deeper over time, and people then would describe the appearance as &quot;starburst&quot; and the dies are getting towards the end of the die pairs useful life. a whole host of things can happen during this period from cracks to chips or breaks to warping of the die face and even spread of the die face if they weren&#039;t re-annealing the dies and trying to maintain them to extend the pairs life.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>if they are referring to &quot;SP&quot; as &quot;specimen proof&quot; then yes, it would be a more polished dies, and stuck under higher pressures, or more times, to achieve the desired effect, and even then, there would be die erorsion which would make them decide to correct the die, or retire it if it could not be repaired.</p><p><br /></p><p>RCM says &quot;<b>Proof Coins</b> with a frosted relief over a brilliant field. Proof coins possess the highest-quality finish for a numismatic coin, and are usually struck twice to reveal the smallest details of the coin&#039;s design.</p><p><b>Specimen</b> A brilliant image relief is struck against a matte or lined background in order to achieve maximum visual impact. Specimen coins are struck up to two times on numismatic presses&quot;.</p><p><br /></p><p>I would think, in the descriptions from the RCM:</p><p><b>MS</b> is the business strike, they might take a little more care for collector versions. U.S. Mint does the same.</p><p><b>PL </b>are also business strikes perhaps they are &quot;first strikes&quot; until the die pairs are broken in for the rest of the MS strikes.</p><p><b>Proof/PR </b>Described to be like the U.S. regular proof strike in my opinion.</p><p><b>SP</b> are the RCM equivalent to Enhanced Proof in the U.S. I think by the sound of it.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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