American Silver Eagle PF-69 Or PF-70?

In reality the difference is very minimal from what you can tell in hand. I prefer PF-69 for that reason.

Save your money if you don't specifically collect labels marked MS70. The coins are the same.

The subjectivity of grading means a cracked and re-submitted MS70 is not guaranteed to be slabbed as an MS70 again even if the coin itself is totally unchanged. And an MS69 could be given an MS70.

People buying the MS70s either are not aware of the reality that grading is not a reliable science (but an art as the TPGs claim), or else the collectors are aware of the facts but just enjoy having labels that say MS70.


My local coin dealer told me he has been totally convinced over the years that that monster boxes, when submitted to try to get some MS70s, just have ~20% skimmed off the top of the box for MS70 slabs and the rest get MS69. He has polled the other large dealers he is aware of and said they told him th same results.

He challenged me to look for myself at MS70s and see how they are not too hard to find with minor flaws that should have kept them from being MS70. My own research confirmed what he said.

Buy the coin, not the slab.

Th legitimacy of the MS70 label on ASEs has been debated here in this forum quite a few times and was dragged out resulting in lost debates (resorting to ad hominem responses and therefore self invalidation) by the side defending the TPGs.

I mention this to say after this post I will say no more, but hope to be helpful in finding the facts if you are unaware of them. For this I offer what was totally rejected in the former debates, aka. a verifiable source of my facts.

One of the dealers who educated me and sent me to look at the situation for myself can be contacted with the included information. The other dealer that educated me is retired. BTW both were trained as and worked as professional graders.

Depends on the year. Some of the recent years the price doesn't have much difference and I personally would probably go 70s on those. The early years though under a 70 is the better play on a budget as some of those are very expensive.

It's really just what you want and like.




Not how they're graded at all. Just more local dealer urban legends