How Did This

Possibly try an acetone bath?

From not wearing cotton gloves?

welder. With a mag glass it is a finger print.

Doesn't really matter; the "tee shirt/polish cloth/Cotton Ball" process has already put paid to the coin's numismatic value. The hairlines those caused aren't visible from this angle, but they're there all the same.

Come on folks. This is a bullion coin that sells for melt plus a small nuisance charge. Pristine, scratched, spotted, polished, or fingerprinted they are melt plus a small nuisance charge. If you get lucky and get a pristine and very high quality piece you can add an extra thirty bucks to the cost and maybe the TPG's will agree and you can have a coin some will pay a real premium for. He paid melt plus a small nuisance charge, and got what he paid for, a generic BULLION coin. At that price your only guarantee is that you will receive a genuine ASE containing one troy oz of silver, and that is what he got.

Wow, that's a bit harsh, doncha think?

Of course, having said that, I also have to say...

Yes it was harsh, but so many collectors today seem to think that EVERYTHING the mint puts out should be of 68, or 69 quality for the appreciation of collectors and if something doesn't measure up to that they start moaning about the "lack of quality control". The mint is a factory. Their goal is to make millions, hundreds of millions, or billions of "parts" as fast and as inexpensively as possible. Yes they do make some coins SPECIFICALLY for collectors, and those should be as high a quality as possible and they are handled with much greater care, but the rest of their products are designed and intended to be serviceable. The business trike coins need to be good enough to serve in commerce, period. Scratches, spots, weak strikes etc do not keep cashiers from taking them or keep them from working in vending machines. The mint does try to produce decent quality coins but they are striving for 68's.

The ASE's are the same way. These are not made for collectors, they were intended for silver stackers. So it is more important that they contain the right amount of silver than that they be pristine and blemish free. And if you watch videos of coins being made you see blanks being bounced around, coins being bounced around and dropped on each other over and over again you should find it a miracle that ANY coin comes out of the mint without being all beat up.

Readind your post again point out where I complained about the lack of Q/C. I asked how did it happen. Not blaming anyone, Then was given a few ideas to maybe fix the issue.