Black Dots/Points On New Silver Never Opened Coin ?

No, they are not the highest points, and even if they are, they should not be touching the plastic casing. In the first picture, it is definitely not at the highest point.

My guess is that something contaminated it during packing. Dirty hands or contaminated capsule.

Unfortunately no one has a concrete answer

All silver will tarnish, no matter how pure it is. Tarnish is caused by exposure to sulfur, rather than oxygen.

^I never thought of that. Any food residue left on their hands would easily do the trick.

Sorry for bumping the topic guys, but I am willing to send the coin for grading by NGC. I am wondering if there is something I could ask them to write on it. Oxidized/tarnished or something, since the coin was never touched and was sealed, so pretty interesting if possible.

Thanks.

The black spots on mint Canadian silver dollars are SULFUR spots, not CARBON spots as they are mistakenly called in so many websites. The sulfur comes from the environment and can appear even on silver coins that have never been unsealed. it can appear on some coins and not on others in the same batch. No one can explain why.

I inherited a batch of 80 Canadian silver dollars (I think they are called "Loonies". They were all sealed, somewhat crudely, in cellophane stamped "CANADA-ROYAL-CANADIAN-MINT" around the edges. Out of the 80, 28 had small, black SULFUR spots in random ares, mostly near the rim, or just on the outside of the rim. Since they are sealed, for me removing these spots is mostly moot, as I would be foolish to take the out of the government mint package.

However, a couple of the packages containing coins with SULFUR spots have become open over time, so I have googled and can find little sound advice about how to clean these coins. There is even very little mention using the term SULFUR for spot cleaning, as the spots are mostly referred to, incorrectly, as carbon spots.

There is one website which recommends using lemon acid baths for up to 24 hours and also rubbing the spots with a raw piece of potato? which has been dipped in warm white vinegar. What little I remember from my college chemistry class causes me to lean towards an acid as being most likely to remove sulfur, so I will experiment and report my findings in a later post. Good luck to all.

Alan Riffle