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Message:: [QUOTE="cladking, post: 8358699, member: 68"]I believe it was partially automated for many years starting at least as early as the late-'50's.  Over the years they would have made improvements until it was fully automated in 1980.  This is based almost solely on the existence of odds defying Gem sets.  Some of the Gems are so scarce for these years that not even one set in 100,000 should be Gem but instead it's far higher.  I used to read reports in the numismatic press that the new sets were beautiful and in the same paper another writer would say the coins looked like they were swept off the mint floor.  I thought some people are harder to please but Now I think both reports were right. There are processes that cause Gems to bunch up in the successively made or prepared sets but I can imagine no means Gems of various denominations would be packaged together other than through intention.  I had a 1968 mint set where each coin was one in a thousand.  Even getting a set where every coin is in the 90th %ile is quite improbable.  After 1979 there aren't any such packaging anomalies that I've ever seen.  Some sets are better than others and some coins are far better than others but there are no odds defying sets; they simply show a natural variation.[/QUOTE]