Quality Of Current RCM Coins Higher Or Lower Than The Past.

The first coin that I was disappointed in the frosting was the Gold Bluenose from 2012- I just thought that it was very rough 'pixelated'
This one:
compared to
This one, a regular 2011 dime:

Is it just my imagination, or is quality control continuing to slide at the RCM?

I travel a fair amount, and because of this, I "unbox" a number of RCM purchases at once (basically, purchases just accumulate until I have a spare moment).

Usually, opening the boxes is an awesome experience... kinda like being a kid in a candy store. This month's experience, however, left me kinda disappointed.

I had a total of three "duds" in my last batch of coins:

1) William Shatner Star Trek - looked as though an asteroid was about to hit his head (massive gouge to the immediate right of his head).

2) Crystal Maple Leaf Coin - piles of metallic shards on the obverse of the coin. I had this exact same experience with one of the previous wildlife collections (deer or eagles... can't remember).

3) Maze coin - I admit, I bought this one completely out of curiosity. Upon reception, totally not a fan. Despite the piece not being a "traditional" coin, the red raised ridges of the "token" looked as though someone sponge-painted them. The colorization was done very, very poorly.

Has anyone else experienced a similar rash of defects from the RCM? A total turn-off that has me questioning future purchases. The occasional error is understandable (we're all human), but three in one night is a pretty low quality standard!

Had a chance to open a few more packages this evening, and more disappointment on my end. I havta ask... am I being too "picky" with my purchases?

Here are two items of disappointment from tonight:

National Heroes: Paramedics Coin - note all of the metallic flecks in the capsule.





Dawn of Justice Subscription Case - Note the gash in the side of the package.



Given the amount of money I shell out, I don't feel I'm being too picky... what do you think?

One thing I have noticed - most of the "questionable" quality is occurring on "pop culture" issues. Does the RCM think that most of their customers purchasing these items are not as inclined to be critical of imperfections (ie: most of these coins are purchased by average consumers versus collectors)?

Don't feel too bad. I was recently looking at 1975 SD in the original packaging and noticed the some black fibre or dirt (?) inside the original capsule. At least you can always return yours.

Cheers!

My first acquisition from the RCM was because they lured me in with the $20 for $20 Star Trek coin. I gave one to my dad and two to my partner before I got around to taking a really close look at them. Here are the last 2:



I'm not keen on trying to do a return, what with time/expense and the inevitable crap-toss of getting something back that might be even lower quality for the trouble. It does make me wish I could afford to get multiples of any coin I like for the mere fact that I could then personally select the *one* for my collection, and hustle the rest on ebay (not expecting to make much, if any, return).

Sadly that leads me to this conclusion: buying off ebay is extra risky if a person is looking for MS69 or MS70 ungraded, because -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- a large portion of the ebay offerings are exactly because people expect variable quality, purchase more than they want, then keep the best for themselves or for grading.

If I keep going down that logic road I can even conspiratorially surmise that the RCM actually *benefits* from such lax QA/QC... So, is there a solution to these issues aside the return-until-satisfied policy?

I'm not convinced it's possible to predetermine a MS69 or MS70 without access to a very large sampling size, aside from blatant flaws and imperfections. Which always leaves me curious to the consistency of NCLT grading standards and how that bar is set from one release to the next. It seems to me the Sheldon Scale of Grading was never intended to encompass NCLT at the time it was invented, however for TPGs the pursuit is obviously a very profitable extention of it.

Yes, so true and the inconsistency involves 3 to 5 or more points, not just one of 70.

This is a link to NGC's MS scale.....beginning with "no post production imperfections". No mention of production imperfections? The down the ladder of "imperceptible", "miniscule", "few", "minimal"......and so on.

https://www.NGCcoin.com/coin-gradin...ading-scale/

Me! Me! Me! And all these time I thought I am the unlucky one...

From what I can recall, RCM's quality control has gone downhill abruptly around mid 2013. During the worst time, I have to exchange one coin almost every month because of quality issues.

At first there were the dandruff/dust problem, where numerous small white dust particles were found on the coins, inside the capsules.

Then there were the fine scratches and nicks on the field of the coins.

Then there came the foreign matter that look like hair got struck on the coins.

And around early 2015, when the Mint started releasing more gold glided, coloured and enamel coins. I started receiving coins with visible signs of damage (like scratches and smudge) that got introduced during the enhancement process...

Sometimes I wonder if the Mint really have someone inspected the coins before packaging them.

I didn't buy as many coins as I used to a year ago so it is hard for me to say if things got better now. But like what you, blastofffireworks, said, the Mint has really taken the fun out of collecting for me. Each time when I received a new coin from the Mint, I can't help but worry if I need to "trouble" my rep again to exchange it, and I don't think I should feel that way.

And BTW, I also buy coins from The Royal Mint of UK and the Perth Mint, and I never have issue with their quality control, no scratch, no dust... no hassle.

If our Mint is reading our posts, I hope they take a hard look at their QC process. While I am not interested in most of their new releases these days, for the ones that I like and ordered, I still hope they came in tip-top condition.