1952 Mint Set Issued In 6-Coin Plexi Case Graded Specimen By PCGS

Nice coins Ken! Good luck at ICCS. MM

I'd love to own that half! The toning is spectacular. I'd say very likely there are hairlines on the surface you can't see in the trueviews for the ones that graded lower than you expected, but PCGS does make mistakes too. Great result on the quarter for sure. Attractive set. I'd say enjoy it. :)

When you said a plexi case tbh I assumed it was an aftermarket case. I'm not aware of any mint issued plexi cases (especially for specimens) but I'm also not an expert on specimen cases, so someone else can chime in here. If it was an aftermarket case then someone handled the coins at least once. Even at the mint someone had to handle them. Hairlines can happen for a variety of reasons and could be as simple as something rubbing over a surface by mistake. They are essentially just one or maybe a few lines faintly scratched into a surface of the coin by something interacting with the surface of the coin, and not necessarily harshly.

Die polish is a whole other subject and isn't something they will bring the grade down for. Die polish is typically obvious by the way it affects the fields and not the devices and is usually a whole bunch of lines all moving together across the fields regardless of devices in between, sometimes straight and sometimes curved. I'm probably not explaining that very well as I'm also not an expert on die polish! :)

@Levaril I'm not an expert either. I still have these photos from the set.

I just thought of something. Given the toning which I think tends to stop or slow down when sealed in acrylic cases like this vs. the open air cases common with specimen sets. So maybe it was transferred at some point after the toning started to kick in either to control the toning or the case was damaged. Could be a few reasons that we'll probably never know.

These capital plastic holders were(and still kind of are) a favorite alternative to the original specimen cases. A specimen box of the era would have been much less protective. The coins probably spent 20-30 years in the original case then got moved into the plastic before toning too dark..thank you former owner for that!

Truly beautiful coins! Congratulations!!!

@doubleeagle59 Oxymoron I agree, the cent is a deeper red which I find more appealing but the photo shows it as bright red. They likely played with the contrast a little to enhance the redness.