Just got this in the mail today. It is a proof silver $1 planchet for which to strike commemoratives. Not too many of these, and since few proofs are made compared to circulated business strikes, proof errors are significantly more rare. And proof silver errors are even rarer. However, few people collect errors. Even fewer collect unstruck examples. Thus, despite being super rare, prices aren't unreachable. I have seen a few of these on auction sites for $260-$400. However, I managed to snag this for $115. Much better shape and fewer hits than all others, as well as a higher grade (but exactly how you can grade an unstruck planchet is still a mystery to me). ~Joe
That's cool! How would something like that get out of the mint? Aren't commemorates individually packaged?
I believe this is the same type of planchet, although not attributed by ANACS as intended for striking a proof coin.
In fairness to the grading services I'd definitely prefer the OP's example to my own and, if there were no photos to go by, there's at least a numerical comparison that may be used to establish a preference, if not a value.
This one defnitely appears proof-like. The only thing strange is the weight variance. Normally silver coins like these - especially modern commemoratives - are pretty uniform and precise unlike circulated coinage. The fact the mine is 27.5 and yours is 26.73 is strange.
Interesting to be sure. According to my references 26.73 grams is the mint-specified weight of the planchets used for modern $1.00 silver commemorative coins. The 27.5 may be a typo, or what PCGS actually weighed. If it is the actual weight, it seems to be 2.9% over.
