LOL. Unfortunately, an otherwise beautiful coin made 'ugly' by some process that could have been prevented?
I actually don't think your example is all that bad. In fact, I think it sort of adds to it, visually. I've got a few that fall under that category. Think: A beautiful starry night sky. If I were interested in that coin, the spotting would not stop me from buying that particular one. Might even choose it over a non-spotted one. Anyway, obviously would prefer to do without the spots, overall, though, as some can get pretty unsightly. More often than not. But you know what? Suppose at least some of these mints finally resolve the issue, and milk-spots become a thing of the past, a blip in Ag history? Some specific examples of them might very well become a sought-after collectors' item in future generations, paying up a nice premium -- you know, since they're "not making them anymore."
I wholeheartedly agree with this. There is nothing like picking the right coin, waiting years for it become the envy of every collector and highly desirable. Then you pull it out to discover a spotted mess that has destroyed the premium you correctly speculated on. I have about 20 such coins myself right now and it is really frustrating. I have just taken the mindset that it is the price I pay to play in the market and a certain percentage of my coins will develop them regardless of what I do.
I was actually just showing my son some of my newer purchases and I noticed a milk spot on one of my double mirror pennies... cant say I am over moon about it, meh
Hence why we despise the white spots. It kills whatever premium that is built up or purchased. Done. Cooked. Nada. One thing for a bar or a generic buffalo or a maple or an eagle to have them. Who cares...little to no premium. It is based solely on spot. But the stuff us collectors put in our treasure chest, like mtforpar mentioned, it kills us, even though we chose the right coin or medal to store as a 'home run' or a triple...or heck, even a double. Blows. I just bought a ton of PF 69's and 70's NGC's...and it would suck to store those away for years to pull them to get ready to sell them for thousands...and they're riddled with spots. #notgood. That's why we hate spots.
Yes, well put. It doesn't matter to me if the tube of 20 2014 ASE's are milked all over....when you sell you are looking to get value based on the silver content, not some collector value. Now, it's quite different if you payed a good premium on high-graded and slabbed bullion coins that you take great effort to protect from the elements and even after all that, they become milky. Very frustrating. .
That's a reaction worth a thumbsup. The RCM folks just continue production blind and deaf as the choice they made. I'm very interested in a chemical and/or production process based explanation for milk spot development and redevelopment on silver. It's clear that quite some other coins are much less prone. The sole difference I can see is that the RCM's silver is 9999 instead of 999. How common did milk spot talk became by now? Too common. It's a problem, a problem has specific reasons, and knowing these fully is the way to a solution. These milk spots, and their seemingly random distribution / sizes / shapes suggest a fluid based origin, and they look extremely well on the spots that (especially hard) water drops leave on the window. The substance is mostly calcium and magnesium. So a possible explanation may be that somewhere in the blancs handling or coin stamping process, hard (in a degree) water is sprinkled. For the record, so far I didn't see milk spots on my kilo lunars and 10oz (2011 and 2014), all ordered from dealers and bought the year itself so no sale buy back involved. I have 2 kilo Kookaburra's dated 1993 (could be minted in later years I suppose) that are were/are quite yellowish, but no milk spots at all. My 10 kilo lunar had some spots, but as it looked like, the dealer must have opened the capsule to hand it around his place, as both plastic and metal showed traces of it, and the spots didn't look like a milk spot picture either.
Yes, Bron, will hopefully have someone respond on this thread, because I sent him a PM about our concerns. This needs to be address about what the problem is (specifically - as you mention), why is this a recent phenomena, what is the solution, what causes it to happen months and years later, etc...I hope they come up with a plan of attack to ID the problem, and more importantly rectify it so it doesn't become a larger issue. It's one thing to deal with toning, I really don't mind that...plus, NCS can take care of this...but white spots...forget about it. It is the kiss of death.
Somebody figured it out: It's an infectious agent that can't be stopped! :lol: Here's something from a while back.. http://goldismoney2.com/showthread....ot-milk-spots-quot-on-silver-Maple-Leaf-coins I found this interesting.. "This is the Mint's official position: The coins are bullion coins. They are not collector coins. They are sold as one ounce of silver. The Mint knows that there is a problem. The problem has existed since 1988, when the SML coin was first introduced. The Mint says that there is nothing that they can do about the problem." Bee.. Ess! If this were truly the case, then where are all the obviously-dipped coins from the 1970's & earlier showing off their milk-spots?? Man has been minting coins for how many centuries, now? Yet the issue has really only been popping up for a couple decades, and lately seems to be only getting worse. Though I suppose if you're producing millions of spotted coins every year, yet still selling with ease, you don't really give a hoot.. Bottom line, there has to be a particular ingredient/chemical compound (or quantity/quality of such) being used nowadays that's being set off by a catalyst of some sort (varying environmental conditions such heat, humidity, compound in the air, die pressure, even length of time of a certain step? etc.) during the production/minting process. Something that *wasn't* being used/done decades ago. Perhaps in some cases, even just several years ago. What has changed since then? Has to be something. I don't know exactly what it is, as I'm not professionally-involved in day-to-day operations in the industry. But some people are. Figure it out! Because end-customers might be deciding to spend their money elsewhere, instead, perhaps on vintage *un-spotted* pieces. Glad to hear PM is on the case. At least they get it, and are taking steps to hopefully rectify. Anyway, here's a decent thread.. http://forums.silverstackers.com/to...s-because-its-9999-pure-silver-or-page-1.html
I know one thing. If I see this becoming more and more of a problem on PM coins, I'm finished spending my thousands on these coins, because the premiums won't matter any more, and I might as well just buy eagles or maples, because they will all fall under the same category, and I'll get maples and eagles for 30/40% cheaper. the PM better get their ducks in a row and figure out what is causing this, and more importantly, figure out how to stop it from happening. I can't imagine there isn't a fix to this issue. As you said, some of the older coins don't have this issue, and they've been 'kicked around the block' being exposed to all sorts or elements. The mints are just being lazy arses. Sorry, a spade is a spade. I won't spend extra on coins that are designed with snow.
PAMP is full of spots, but I never encountered this with PM so far. You can clean that off, by the way without damaging the coin.
Lol at that "infecting other coins" Gatito Bandito My initial thought was laughing hard, but I changed mind halfway lol, and changed to let's not laugh, let's think good first. Because you never know, sometimes actually normal things can be very surprising. To give an example: a while ago I purchased two decorative quartz/whatever lightred colored rock pieces that sat mounted in wooden dishes. They were hollow but thick wands (3 cm). I placed them on top of a small high cabinet. Months later, I found a whole pool water near the electric outlets. It was just a mystery, it was like someone or some cat/dog peed there lol. But that was so unlikely that there had to be another reason. And after some ehm investigation, following discolored areas, I arrived at those rocks. And indeed, apparently air humidity and the very cold feeling surface of the rocks, caused water to condense on them. Shows how surprising nature / chemistry can be lol. Still, it's quite hard to think of a spreading phenomenon in the sense that a present spot causes others. Such process requires self-reproduction, being contaminating elements that replicate and also can move or are moved, so 'peel' off / detach. My last purchase of maples (two tubes) had one tube with the upper / most exposed coin having milk spots, and none on the others. And that tube had a polystyreen piece as gap filler (thats another thing, why does the RCM not use tubes that fit exactly?), the other did not. Which suggests a milk spot development based on particles in the air, or from hands / whatever external influence. The new 2014 relief design showed something additional: the spot follows the relief. If the problem origined from a blancs stage, wouldn't the pressure of the minting deform/push the upper metal aside to reveil a previously covered layer? The RCMs answer is abit surprising too. "Cannot do". It's hard to believe that this problem is not solvable, for reasons / comparisons mentioned. It's like they're forced somehow in inability to solve it. Question: is the RCM required by law to use 9999 silver? If yes, it could be a hint. But they should then just give that reason, why hiding it, and why not polling the lawmaker about it? There are plenty possible reasons, upto just no money to fix it in the production process. And also combinations of reasons. Things that are hard to solve often are due to a combination of things. Fixing one of these doesnt solve, trying another neither, only tracking down one after one does. I really wonder what that university personell will discover about this problem pop out of seemingly nothing case of a Perth Mint kilocoin 2015 goat. A sudden occurence is always a better opportunity to track down a cause, because it eliminates everything that didnt change between before and after. And yes, it can be cleaned off, I did it several times for the lose tube 2011 maples I had (until I swapped them for 90% junk), a jewellers cloth. Goes quick too. But the new design with the relief, well, it like digged that option.
milkspots-demand is up for precious metal=quality is down as cannot keep up with demand(how many times has happened that the mint suspended sales of silver coins?) and if u look around yrself quality is not just down with metals -clothes,food,cars,electronics etc....
Let's hope Ron replies quickly as he needs to get onto this. Has anyone heard from the PM about the fake EBay PM bars. We reported those to the PM and to Ron nearly 6 months ago?
No excuses for the PM. Maples? Yes. Eagles? Yes. But to pay 10 -15 over spot for a semi numi like a goat or a horse...no way, spots are unacceptable. And if it becomes a regular occurance, I'm done buying them. And I think a lot of folk will be too. because the premium will be out the window...and it won't be much better than an eagle or maple, except for low mintage.
