Reply to Thread

Message:: [QUOTE="GDJMSP, post: 1258195, member: 112"]The population of 70s increased because of changes to the grading standards used by the TPGs. It had nothing to do with the coins. Starting in 1973 the mint changed their methods in regard to making sure that the Proofs were all cameo. Prior to that, they didn't care if the Proofs turned out cameo or not. After that, they made sure that they were all cameo. Granted, there were a few shortly after the change that had a poor cameo quality. By by the late '70s they all were. There are some differences between the cameo coins of various years due to the different methods used to treat the dies. Some were sand blasted, some were acid etched, and now they use lasers. So of course the texture is going to be slightly different. But the net effect is the same. But the way that use of the dies wears that textured finish off was pretty much the same regardless of what method was used to create the finish. As to how many times a Proof die is re-textured, I have no idea. But the determining factor is the polishing of the fields. Once that polishing wears the die fields down low enough that the the relief is no longer there, or that the polishing will begin to intrude on the devices - then the die is discarded. The mint doesn't really give us numbers regarding how many coins each die makes or how many times a die is re-surfaced, they just give us rough estimates in some of the comments they make.[/QUOTE]