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Message:: [QUOTE="KBBPLL, post: 24667720, member: 104064"]There certainly were proof coins minted in the 19th century. I don't know how they were packaged but I recall something about brown coin envelopes. They were ordered by letter directly to the mint and probably mailed as well (I don't know how else they would have done it). From the late 1800s mint records it seems they were produced in sets of dollars, halves, quarters, and dimes; at least the quantities produced in a given month were all equal (50, 100, etc). Nickels and cents were also produced in equal numbers, but more than the silver coins. Proof runs were done quarterly in March, June, September and December. Sample mint record here <a href="https://archive.org/details/Rg104entry271vol5/page/n21/mode/2up" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://archive.org/details/Rg104entry271vol5/page/n21/mode/2up" rel="nofollow">https://archive.org/details/Rg104entry271vol5/page/n21/mode/2up</a> - in this case 50 silver and 200 nickel/cent proofs were coined in September 1897. Any time the "number of pieces" doesn't end in 000, it's the number of proofs. TMI, I know...[/QUOTE]