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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Jaelus, post: 6229436, member: 46237&quot;]I think the difference in your thinking is exemplified with your use of the word &quot;better&quot; here. It&#039;s not better. It&#039;s different. The surfaces of the coin are different to the extent that they impair differently than matte business strikes do. Just as the LDS/TDS coin from my previous example is also not better, it is <i>different</i>. And we all know numismatics is all about calling out and naming miniscule differences, and yet this is a fairly significant difference in finish, not some minor rotation or position difference on one of the devices like we call out for classic varieties.</p><p><br /></p><p>In my own collection, I treat these coins as a different strike type altogether, and will never use a proof-like coin to fill a business strike slot. For many issues that have known proof-likes, I endeavor to find an example of both a proof-like and a business strike for every date in the set.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>I don&#039;t have the ticket, but it is clear why both examples were kept together in the collection. This was not only the first year of issue, but it was a new <i>denomination</i> altogether, and the mintage was extremely low (unknown, but most likely less than 10,000). Examples in a state of preservation like mine (MS65+) are just not out there, and to have a <i>pair</i> of them like this, I suspect (without any proof of course) that they may have been presentation coins. They would not have called the one coin proof-like, but the equivalent of <i>first strike</i>.</p><p><br /></p><p>Why does there have to be consistency about this term between different languages? For example, every European language I am aware of calls what we call a pattern the equivalent of <i>test strike</i>. And yet in English, I would say test strike has a different connotation than pattern. In other languages they do not differentiate between these terms.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>So do I.</p><p><br /></p><p>So most of the world calls proof-like coins <i>first strikes</i>. I think proof-like is a better name, since you can certainly have a first strike that is not proof-like in appearance, and you can have a proof-like that is not technically what we think of as a first strike (in modern usage - when the term was coined abroad it was true). But hey, the coin looks like a proof, so proof-like isn&#039;t a bad name, but something like proof-like business strike would be more precise.</p><p><br /></p><p>As for the modern collector finish issues, I blame Canada for calling their coins proof-like, as the TPGs latched on to this and then started labelling the collector finish coins from other countries PL for consistency. For example, the Hungarian mint calls their collector finish &quot;BU&quot;, which honestly is an <i>even worse name</i> than proof-like. I see auctions for Hungarian coins by English speakers and they will put BU in the auction title in reference to the grade, but the coin will also have a BU (read: collector finish) version, and thus the term becomes ambiguous. So now the TPGs will label these Hungarian BU issues as PL to be consistent with the Canadians. Personally, I refer to these modern issues collectively as &quot;collector finish&quot; coins. I think this is a much better term, as while different countries have different names for this finish, the one commonality is that they were all made specially for collector sets or the like, but are not proofs.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Thank you.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Absolutely not. Numismatic jargon specifically describing these coins (regardless of the term used) dates back at the very least to the early 17th century. In Europe, they would sometimes strike the first coins from new dies in a special metal like silver or gold, even if it was a base metal issue, and/or they would take the first strikes and use them as presentation pieces for a Lord or other dignitary. They were <i>well aware</i> that the first strikes from new dies had a special appearance where the coin would strike up fully and it would (for lack of a better word) look like what we think of as a proof. So these coins frequently would have had special handling in contrast with the successive business strikes, and absolutely had special significance to the mint and to numismatists.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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