Newly Found Special Strike Modern Coins

Thanks for the link.

There are more special issues than many people realize and most appear in mint sets. These specific coins, however, do not appear in mint sets. Well, they are similar to the '64 SMS and some of the '65- '67 SMS, but they aren't the same.

I haven't had a chance to study this yet and haven't seen the coins in hand but I'd guess they are similar to the 1965 to date mint set coins in that they are stuck from better hubbed dies and more carefully. Primarily, they appear to be struck repeatedly by brand new dies at low pressure rather than a single time or twice at very high pressure. It is an interesting effect and the list of specimens seems to support the perception that the mint was toying with collectors for many years. There seemed to be an attempt to get people to notice the strange goings on but no one did. For instance 1979 was also the year they quit making mint sets with all Gems in them. In most years somewhere between .5 and 1% of mint sets would contain all gemmy or even Gem coins and these sometimes looked a little different than regular mint set coins because in some dates the Gems just look different. There used to be letters to the editor in the coin papers side by side with one writer extolling the beuty and perfection of the new mint set with another writer speaking of how terrible they looked. They were both right. I've seen very few, if any, mint sets that look like they were intentionally assembled to offend collectors but pure chance allows some of these sets to simply be attrocious. But lots of sets appear to have had coins swapped in and out to make superb sets, but 1979 is the last year for these.

Of course there were some oddities released to circulation too but these tended to be extremely few and far between usually.

There wasn't necessarily a deterioration in mint set quality. There probably was some but it started more in '81 than in '80. It was just the end of sets that were all gemmy in 1980. It might well have something to do with personnel change or retirement but I tend to blame this specific change on the installation of automated machinery to assemble the sets. There's very little information about any mint set processes or practices so I could easily be wrong.

Mintages probably only increased due to the inclusion of the third dollar coin with only a $1 price increase and then it jumped again in '81 because the three dollars were mint set only.

Ironically 1980 was the only year I ever bought a mint set though I did try in 1965 before the issuance of the SMS and had my money refunded.

I have read the article and found it very interesting, especially that they have managed to piece together a working theory for why these special coins exist from 1950 to 1979.

I was excited when I began collecting and I still get excited when the new coins show up in my change. I have gotten more excited in the last few years since the new coins do not appear as early now.