Frosted Devices

The "frost" is caused by a microscopic granularity in the recesses of the die as a result of the die-making process. Condor will probably expand on that.

Morgan designed the dollar to have the capability to produce a cameo surface with mirror fields and frosted devices. The master die for the Margan dollar had a cameo surface and was transferred to the working dies. The devices has a natural rough surface that created the frosted effect. The fields were polished to enhance the mirror effect. As the dies wore from use the frost and mirror effect weakened. Leroy Van Allen estimates that a working die would produce from 500 to 2000 cameo Morgan dollars. Something changed in the preparation of the dies after 1900 because very few of these Morgan dollars display the cameo effect.

No. First you need to qualify your question. Frosted devices are a usual product of coin making. Just about any new coin can be called frosted.

If you are asking about cameo frosted devices and mirror fields, that is a different thing. Dies for these coins are etched.

Frosted "cameo" coins existed before Morgan dollars but they were not Deep cameo. Walter Breen has a discussion of proofs in one of his books.

Depends on what you mean by frost.

Frosted can mean coins that look like they are white with frost - very high mint state coins but with "frosty" instead of "prooflike" luster. "Blast white" gets used a lot, too.

You can also refer to cameo devices on Proofs as "frosted." They contrast with the brilliant mirrored fields, creating a "black-and-white" look.

As far as frosted proofs go: I'm not an expert but I will share what I know.

I've seen some of the very, very early proofs (late 18th and early 19th c.)

By modern standards some collectors might even find them unattractive, being full of die polishing lines, recutting, and other artifacts.

A proof strike was originally just that -- to prove that a design was suitable for minting. These coins were struck not only for preservation (e.g. the Mint Cabinet) but also used to reward dignitaries, representatives, ambassadors, influential businessmen, etc. You might see them referred to as "specimens." I think this ran through the early 1830s.

IIRC the first trading of "proof" coins to collectors and individuals started in the later years of the 1830s. By the late 1850s the Mint started selling Proof coins directly to the public.

From the late 1850s onward you can find CAM and (very rarely) DCAM/UCAM Proofs. Those have the "frosted" look accentuated.

The Morgan dollars, in particular, had the "frosty cameo" look for Uncirculated coins on early die strikes, most often on 1878-1881 coins minted in San Francisco, and occasionally on coins from the other 2 mints. Those Prooflike/Deep Mirror Prooflike resulted from very fine polishing of the fields, which lasted for however many hundreds/thousands of strikes before taking on an appearance of a normal Uncirculated Morgan dollar (non-PL.)