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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;cladking, post: 24648890, member: 68&quot;]This is mostly true.</p><p><br /></p><p>A lot of the problem with mint sets is that the mint always described their manufacture in terms that made sense to the mint rather than the buyers of the coins.&nbsp; Many of their statements were highly misleading and some were not literally true. Processes and techniques varies widely over the years and sometimes within years.&nbsp; The words they used were adequate to describe the pre-65 sets but not the &#039;65 and later sets. </p><p><br /></p><p>The &#039;65 to &#039;67 SMS&#039;s were completely redone from earlier sets.&nbsp; These were struck on slower presses with new dies under much greater force.&nbsp; They were attempting to make a proof/ unc hybrid and they succeeded.&nbsp; But set production didn&#039;t revert to the old procedures in 1968.&nbsp; Most of the niceties continued to be used.&nbsp; There had been dozens of changes that affected all or part of the SMS production and many of these would be used again over the years in mint sets.</p><p><br /></p><p>Of course you can&#039;t tell a coin that was fully struck by new dies for circulation from a mint set coin.&nbsp; But circulation dies struck a million coins and mint set dies only 40,000 so new dies tend to indicate mint set.&nbsp; You can&#039;t tell a coin struck with 30 tons of pressure from one struck by 35 tons but the one with stronger force is more likely to be a solid strike.&nbsp; You can&#039;t tell a coin struck at low speed from one struck at high speed but a low speed press allows time for die fill improving the chance for a full strike. </p><p><br /></p><p>Sometimes dies were even polished and basined for mint set coins but these effects can wear off before even a dozens strikes.&nbsp; Mint sets coins were almost always washed and dried but, again, this is invisible in the finished product. </p><p><br /></p><p>Very very few rolls of clad coins were ever even saved.&nbsp; This was chiefly due to the horrendous quality of the circulation issues.&nbsp; While there were some very nice coins made for circulation including fully struck Gems most rolls had nothing but MS-60 junk in most years.&nbsp; These coins (like &#039;66 quarters) often didn&#039;t even look uncirculated and were poorly made and dinged up badly. Others like &#039;74 Ikes looked like they had been through the Battle of the Marne because they were run through machines like cement mixers to knock down high rims. </p><p><br /></p><p>While many mint set coins are ugly due to various problems the vast majority of Gems made at the mints each year were put in mint sets.&nbsp; Finding Gems in mint sets is like shooting fish in a barrel.&nbsp; In most cases now days this is neither here nor there because there are no rolls except mint set rolls. People have been disassembling these sets for nearly 60 years now to sell the winners or just to spend the coins.&nbsp; while most of the coins go into circulation some are saved as singles and rolls and these rolls constitute most of the supply of chBU rolls.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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