From the Graders Desk This week the four piece silver Kennedy Half Commemorative set was released by the Mint. Sales opened on Tuesday and by the end of the week, purchasers began receiving their sets. The four coins include one from each Mint (Philadelphia, Denver, San Fransisco, and West Point) with each coin having its own style of production. The Philadelphia piece is your standard Ultra Cameo Proof. The Denver piece is standard Uncirculated. The West Point piece is in Reverse Proof. The San Francisco piece is an Enhanced Finish Specimen. When the sets started coming in, it was quickly noticed that the Enhanced pieces have a varying look to the the fields. In some sets the fields were very dark with a bare minimum of effect to remove any look of being a normal Proof. On these pieces, the only differences between them and the standard proof are the mintmark, the lack of a true mirror, and the raised portions of the shield on the reverse of the coin. In other sets the Enhanced piece was quite a bit lighter in the fields giving the look of a Mint State coin that was struck with Proof dies. This happened previously in 1999 with a small portion of Gold Eagle releases bearing the W mintmark. The images provided are of two Enhanced Finish Kennedy Halves. The one on the left shows the darker fields while the one on the right shows a more satin look. Which one looks better of course will always be in the opinion of the individual collector. It is not yet known as of this writing if these finishes will be noted by the grading companies, but they do provide an interesting addition to collecting this release. Editorial: If I am to point out negatives in regards to the Mints products such as last week, it would be a bad thing for me to not point out positives. In this case, the release of the Silver Kennedy Sets this past week, for a special edition set, was one of the fastest and smoothest seen by the mint. On the first day of ordering, Tuesday, the Mints website was quick, responsive, and easy to get the orders taken. The next day, orders were already being shipped and received by Thursday and Friday. In this case, kudos to the mint for a much better release than has happened in the past.
Posted on: Sat, 01 Nov 2014 17:29:56 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015