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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GDJMSP, post: 2887163, member: 112&quot;]Well whatever it is it&#039;s been going on for a long time, I&#039;ve seen examples of ASEs with milk spots from the 80&#039;s and they didn&#039;t start making them until &#039;86 so it may have been going on for as long as the coins have been being made. That, coupled with the fact that it&#039;s in the metal tells me it&#039;s in the alloy which means it could be in the silver right from the beginning. Or - maybe it&#039;s just in some silver and not all of it. And that would explain why it&#039;s found in some coins and not all of them. But there&#039;s another reason too.</p><p><br /></p><p>What I&#039;m getting at is this - take the process back to the smelters, the refiners. They typically refine the metal down to its purest form and then sell it. Then others buy it and they make the alloy they want. It might be 90%, 92.5%, 99% - whatever they want it to be based on their customer&#039;s orders. Then they sell it to their customers who make planchets or jewelry. Then they sell the planchets to the mints.</p><p><br /></p><p>Point I&#039;m getting at is that whatever it is, it&#039;s already in the metal when the mint gets the planchets. And it is being out there by whoever mixes the alloy. But for the milk spots to show up when the coins are struck, or after some period of time after the coins were struck, whatever the impurity is that causes the milk spots - it has to be right at the surface of the planchet or it&#039;s not going to show up on the coin.</p><p><br /></p><p>Picture a planchet in your mind, it&#039;s thick like this - </p><p><br /></p><p>____________&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>____________&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Now if the impurity is anywhere in the middle - it&#039;s not going to show up on a coin. But if it&#039;s right at the surface where the air can get to it, then it is going to show up. I&#039;m pretty sure that&#039;s why milk spots show up sometimes and don&#039;t sometimes. It&#039;s all a matter of chance. Milk spots are only to go show up when the impurity just happens to end up right on the surface of the planchet.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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