What do you do when PCGS calls it SMS?

asdfy · August 9, 2003 10:26AM

I just received back some coins from grading.. among them was a 1965 Lincoln Cent in PCGS MS67RD SMS.

It is not an SMS coin. It definitely came from a roll.

Is there any hope for this coin?

I've had PCGS send back some business strikes as SMS's before, but never one where it made such a big difference.

Anyone else run into this problem?

cupronik · August 9, 2003 11:01AM

Hello Asdfy:

I've had several similar experiences where coins picked from BU rolls
and submitted for grading as non-SMS to PCGS have been returned
with the SMS designation. This happens mostly with clad quarters.
In fact during late June 2003 I was checking the status of a current
submission of 1966 & 1967 quarters and found out PCGS denoted
every quarter as SMS. These coins were not from a paper bank-
wrapped roll, but none of these had any sort of mirror finish. Considering that these two rolls were among a group of ordinaryBU rolls leads me to think they're circulation-strikes also.
I even called PCGS to tell them before they shipped the coins, but
upon immediate review, they still maintained that the quarters were
of the SMS variety.

What to do? I don't know. I have a box of MS-66 SMS quarters that
have little value compared to their circulation-strike kin. I have
to wonder if the mint actually released late die strike SMS coins
into circulation after filling the collector orders for such sets in those
years.

Anyone care to share their view?

clackamas · August 9, 2003 2:10PM

Someone posted an explanation back a few weeks ago. Apparently back in the day SMS sets were purchased for the halves and the remaining (trash 1c,5c,10c, and 25c) coins were put aside in rolls. Apparently this was on a large scale so there will be quite a few rolls out there (Ebay etc) that are made up of SMS coins and appear to be "original" rolls form the 60's.

supercoin · August 9, 2003 2:25PM

Ouch. In my experience unfortunately the policy seems to be something like "if it looks too good to be true, it's an SMS".

I grubbed my way through a couple thousand 60's nickels once only to have the few meager fruits of my labor tagged with the dreaded SMS.

I have no solution, just feeling your pain.

Last discussion that I participated in about this I posed the question as to why they are even separately designated if there is no way to definitively tell them apart (which apparently there is not).

cosmicdebris · August 9, 2003 8:11PM

Sounds like a call to customer service is needed.

cladking · August 9, 2003 9:42PM

There were very large numbers of SMS looking coins in circulation back in
the late '60's. This was especially common for quarters and especially with
the 1965 date. There were far too many for these to have been castoffs
from SMS sets and many of them showed more die wear than is typical for
SMS strikes. There were few that showed more wear than middle die state,
so I've always believed that these were struck by "retired" SMS dies and that
the SMS markers were obliterated after about another 100,000 strikes.

You can still see these markers on some of the circulating coins but they
begin fading fast as they approach Fine condition and so many are only VG now.

misterR · August 9, 2003 10:17PM

I talked to the customer service representatives till I was blue in the face about this same subject. That was about six months to a year ago. They would take the coins in question back to the "experts" who were insistant that the coin was a SMS. My remedy-I only rarely submit any 1965, 1966 or 1967 coins. I've sent in 3 Roosevelt dimes from those years in the last 4 months and all 3 have been wrongly labeled as SMS. Looks like I need to cut back completely!

segoja · August 9, 2003 10:44PM

My understanding from Val Webb, noted proof/cameo specialist, is that the reeding on any SMS has knife like edges. When rolled around in your hands the edges appear to stick. The edges on business strikes are more rounded and roll off the finger more easily. Try it with some coins you know came from a SMS set vs coins you think came from rolls.

Not sure how this would ever affect PCGS, but until there is a good way to tell, the difficulty of high grade 1965-1967 non SMS coins will always be in question.

Datentype · August 9, 2003 11:29PM

I go through this all of the time. they will go back and forth on the same coin if you crack out and resubmit them. The coins change grades and varieties depending on the grader. The answer is that they defintly had sms coins mixed in with MS rolls and to me it's very difficult to tell them apart at times and yes if it looks too nice they error on the conserative side.

keets · August 10, 2003 6:46AM

hey all

good topic for discussion. i currently have a 1965 Washington that appears to be a lock MS66 with a shot at MS67. i only wish it were so easy to tell the correct designation with a higher degree of certainty, especially on the 1965 issues. shouldn't there be some die characteristics unique to either business or SMS coins?? one thing i look for is the luster, but the 1965 issues again resemble each other in that category.

it's rather funny that with a rather poor example of a business strike and a rather high grade example of an SMS strike it's easy to distinguish. where it becomes grey is where the two merge, nice business strike and poor SMS strike. what a dilemma.

i meant to take my Washington to Baltimore for a HomeRunHall ruling but forgot it. bummer!! it's got the prettiest blue-pink tone. sure would look nice in a PCGS MS66 holder.

al h.

asdfy · August 10, 2003 9:10AM

Thanks to everyone for the comments.

The coin in question this time came from a lot of about 50 rolls of Lincoln cents from 1965. All of coins in these rolls basically displayed the same characteristics of above average luster, which gave them all an "SMS-like" look. I'd find it hard to believe that such a large number of coins (2,500 for the 50 rolls) all came from broken up SMS sets. Especially since many of the coins did have characteristics more like business strikes than SMS strikes. I would tend to go along with the use of retired SMS dies mentioned by clad king.

I might try a crackout/re submit with this coin, and submit with some other coins from the same group of 50 rolls that look a little bit more like circulation strikes, but with the same sort of luster.

supercoin · August 10, 2003 9:38AM

My understanding from Val Webb, noted proof/cameo specialist, is that the reeding on any SMS has knife like edges.

That seems like a pretty weak indicator vs. a sharply struck normal coin. And not much help for the cent/nickel guys in any case.

A thought occured to me in relation to some other threads I started about mintmarks...

I wonder if you could (in theory) catalog all the known mintmark positions for SMS coins using digital imaging (based on obvious SMS coins, not the borderline ones we're talking about here), and if your coin didn't match one of those mintmark positions, then it's not an SMS. Hmm...

TWQG · August 10, 2003 9:42AM

<< <i>mintmark positions for SMS >>

segoja · August 10, 2003 9:43AM

I'd like to buy some of those mintmarked SMS coins, and while I'm at it, I'd take a few of the mintmarked bsuiness strikes as well.

supercoin · August 10, 2003 10:00AM

Cool, it's even simpler than I thought! If your coin has a mintmark, it's not an SMS.

Cocoinut · August 11, 2003 5:24AM

I have a very cherry 1965 half that I purchased from a dealer in early 1966, as soon as the 1965 business strike halves were released. Even though I pulled it from an original roll and it has no hint of a P-L surface, I'm afraid to send it in to PCGS, because it'll probably be labelled as SMS. The SMS sets hadn't even been offered for sale yet by the Mint when I bought this coin. I wonder if anyone else has run into this situation. If I had a hand-written, dated receipt from 1966 that described the coin (which I don't), do you think PCGS would believe it?

For those of you who weren't around back then, the 1965 quarters were the first coins bearing that date to go into circulation, in October or November of 1965, following the 1964 date freeze. I can't remember when the dimes came out, but the 1965 cents, nickels and halves first appeared in 1966.

Jim

DHeath · August 11, 2003 2:54PM

It is simply impossible to distinguish the LDS SMS coins from sharp business strikes. I cut the 65 Washington below from the cello myself, and even though the coin is remarkably clean, the detail is terrible and the reverse is poorly struck with the right wing blending with the field. There is MDD on the date, and absolutely zero mirrors. The distinction should probably be removed for 65 and 66.

Obverse
Reverse

bushmaster8 · August 11, 2003 11:10PM

This is a huge problem and it has been the subject of several threads in the past. Th e bottom line is that it is indeed impossible to differentiate the two in many cases. I strongly feel that SMS dies were used to strike coins intended for circulation.

I also agree that the SMS designation should not be used for 1965 and 1966 coins since PCGS has repeatedly demonstrated that they can not tell the difference any better than the rest of us.

rd5425 · August 12, 2003 12:55AM

My question is has pcgs ever graded an sms coin as a business strike?

freakycoinfreak · August 12, 2003 4:20AM

Ive had this problem. Called PCGS and was told that they cant tell the difference between business strikes and sms strikes and now all coins go through the grading process as if sms coins. Only if the graders trip and realize it is a business strike will they call it one. PCGS ignores the coin number you use and only uses the sms numbers in house.

I was rather shocked when they told me this, but that is what they said.

What do you do when PCGS calls it SMS?

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