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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GDJMSP, post: 1199153, member: 112&quot;]I think you&#039;ll find threads on exactly the same topic going back to the beginning of this forum in 2002. And if you searched other forums that existed before that, there are only 3 that I can think of, you&#039;ll find most threads with the exact same discussion that are even older. I guess what I am trying to say is that this topic has been around for as long as the mint has been selling collector coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>If you stop and think about it there&#039;s a lot to be learned from knowing that. It&#039;s kind of like the saying - &quot;the good old days&quot;. Pretty much anybody you talk to, about any subject you choose, will tell you that things used to be better in the past. What that should tell you is that that attitude is a human condition and not an accurate reflection of reality.</p><p><br /></p><p>Probably from the beginning of time people have held the attitude that things were always better in the past. But that has more to do with people as a whole being resistant to change and personal taste than it does to things actually having been better in the past. People always seem to like things &quot;the old way&quot; better than they do &quot;the new way&quot;. This is even indicated by what can be perceived as a general belief that coin designs of the past were better than coin designs of today. And yes you can count me among those believers as well.</p><p><br /></p><p>But like I said in the beginning, the mere fact that such widespread beliefs exist indicates they are a human condition and not an accurate reflection of reality. And if you limit the thinking to just one subject like the quality of mint products it tells you something else. That being that no matter what, there will always be some products that turn out better than others. That means that somebody is going to get the products with lower quality. And when they do, they are going to compare that quality with the quality of products they had received in the past. That of course causes posts just like this one to come into being.</p><p><br /></p><p>Of course then somebody is going to say that everybody knows that craftsmanship and pride in your work has gone the way of the dinosaur. That in today&#039;s world nobody cares anymore. And again I would be hard pressed to dispute that argument. But yet when you actually look at things from an unbiased perspective it&#039;s pretty hard to argue that things are not better today than they were in years past. That kind of brings us right back to where we started.</p><p><br /></p><p>My way of looking at it is this - the &quot;good old days&quot; are right now, today. And in the years to come, that&#039;s exactly what people (future generations) will say about this particular period in time.</p><p><br /></p><p>I guess to sum it up you have to accept that there&#039;s always going to be good and there&#039;s always going to be less than good. Nobody&#039;s perfect, not you, not me, and not the US Mint. And that condition has been with us as long as we have existed and will be with us until we no longer exist.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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