Burnished Silver Eagles

yep, your friend is wrong, they did not mint the burnished collector UNC versions in 2009 and 2010 because of a shortage of Silver. They did resume production in 2011 but not sure if they will do it again this year with the way silver is going this year. They have to mint as many bullion versions it takes to meet demand so when the demand is high on those the burnished collector version doesn't get minted and that is what happened in 2009 and 2010

Noobie question: What's the difference between a standard silver eagle and a burnished silver eagle?

More clarification needed. I have a collection of UNC eagles with every year through 2012. For this series to be complete, it would seem that I would need to add burnished UNCs 2006W, 2007W, 2008W, 2011W, and 2011S. I had never heard of the UNC 2011S burnished before, so do you know if it was sold individually or just in some sort of set? Thanks again for any inputs.

If you have a bullion set 1986-2012 I would call it complete. Now if you want to add the "w" and "s" coins that were released to collectors by the mint you certainly can along with all the proof and reverse proofs to.

2011 S





Reverse proof 2006 p (also there is a 2011 p)





There are rumors about a special "s" mint set of a reverse proof and burnished "s" mint coin to mark an anniversary of the San Francisco mint.

The bullion coins were originally minted at San Francisco (just like the proofs) but eventually all production moved to West Point until 2011 when SF began minting bullion again. All of the bullion coins in the 25th anniversary sets were struck in San Francisco, as were several million other 2011 bullion coins. The so called burnished coins are actually what the mint calls uncirculated strikes. The blanks are burnished prior to upsetting to make for a more uniform surface after striking but none of the burnishing remains after being struck. The final finish on the uncirculated coins is a result of the fact that the die have been sandblasted, not a result of the blank burnishing (bullion die are not sandblasted and the finish on bullion coins is classic mint luster). The blanks for bullion coins are sent to upsetting exactly as they come in from the vendors. The blanks for proof coins are highly polished before upsetting but again, that is not what gives them their final mirror finish, it only minimizes any possible surface defects and enhances die lifetime. Again, it is the die that imparts the finish to the coin. The bullion coins have no mint mark. All uncirculated and proof (reverse included) coins have mint marks. So far the reverse proofs have only been minted in Philadelphia (in 2006 and 2011, but different production methods were used in the two years). Proof SAEs have come from three mints over the years (S,W, &P) with only Denver left out of the mix. We are probably going to see more varieties (or at least mint marks) in the coming years because of the success of the 2011 anniversary set.

Anyone can order a 2019 W ASE from the Mint which, by definition of process, is from burnished dies.

The US Mint just calls these coins Uncirculated. Here's the link for the 2019 coin on the Mint's website.

Both the proof ASEs and the uncirculated ASEs use burnished blanks.





It's the aftermarket (dealers, collectors, news media, etc.) that has decided to use the term "burnished" for the uncirculated W mint marked coins to distinguish them from uncirculated bullion coins.

Recently, there was a discussion in this thread about how easy or difficult it is to distinguish between an uncirculated W mint marked ASE and an uncirculated bullion ASE. The consensus was that the two coins CAN look very similar and the only sure way to tell them apart is to look for the W mint mark.