2016 American Silver Eagle Mint

Bullion coins have no mint mark. They are struck at either San Fran or west point. Unless you are getting it from a sealed monster box you can't be certain. The strap bands identify which mint the box came from. That's why you see bullion american silver eagles stabbed as (w) or (s) because a sealed monster box was submitted for bulk grading

I'm still a bit confused. The mint website shows 2015 bullion coins with a W stamped on them. This is why I assumed no mark meant a different mint, as San Fran (according to wiki) has been supplementing WP's supply since 2011.

http://catalog.usmint.gov/american-...oins#start=1

They call them burnished but the coins themselves really aren't. It is the planchets that have been burnished, thus reducing any surface irregularities and allowing slightly higher strike forces without seriously reducing die life. Proof Coins are similar, only the blanks are highly polished, not because that is what makes the mirror finish on the coin, but because that makes it better and extends die lifetimes. The die for both the uncirculated and proof ASEs are specially hardened and the die for the uncirculated versions have that nice matte finish. You could still make uncirculated and proof coins from unaltered bullion blanks but average quality and die life would suffer. The uncirculated & proof coins are also handled individually, whereas the bullion coins are put into tubes touching each other and then those tubes are put into the monster boxes. The one exception to this that I know of is the bullion coin that was included in the 2011 anniversary set, which was struck at he SF mint and then handled as if it was uncirculated.

Thanks for the clarification...wealth of info here.

I love my American Silver Eagles. It is one of the most beautiful coins ever made.

Bullion coins (not sold direct to the public) come in rolls like this:



which are in "monster" boxes of 500 coins like this:



Burnished coins (W mint mark)sold directly to collectors by the Mint come packaged individually in presentation boxes like this:



Then there are S mint and reverse proofs, and proofs and enhanced finish ASE's but we won't go there yet..

That's not accurate. Again, do not confuse "uncirculated" (also called "burnished") with "bullion". It's easy to do but they are two very distinct products.

Uncirculated/burnished have been produced since 2006, except for the years 2009 and 2010. They all have "W" mint marks except for 2011, which has both "W" and "S", the latter ASE only being available in the ASE 25th Anniversary set.



That's correct, but I believe you're referring to bullion ASEs, which is also correct. No bullion, uncirculated, or proof ASEs have been minted at San Francisco since 2014.

Semantics was never my strong point lol...

If it was up to me, bullion ASEs would be called uncirculated and graded MS##, burnished would be called burnished and graded SP##, and proof called proof and graded PF##

Wouldn't that make more sense?