Does anybody know the life span of the dies for 'Satin Finish' Mint Set production?

Russellhome

There have been 3 different DDRs found in the 2005 mint sets - a total of 1.3 million produced. The SMS DDRs have sold exceptionally well on eBay. I was just trying to figure the odds of getting one of the DDRs in a sealed, unsearched box.

Just to pick a number, say 25,000 SMS quarters were struck with the average die. That number may be way high or way low -- It's just a guess. Divide that into 1.3 million, that would make approx. 52 die pairs for each quarter to complete the 2005 mint set run. Now, since there are 3 DDRs in the set, that would make the oddes about 3/52 -- which is approx. 1 in 17 sets. So, considering that these sets are still selling at mint issue price on eBay, it seems like a worth while venture to be snagging them up.

Of course, my logic here all depends on the number of quarters struck with the 3 known doubled dies. Does anyone know the average production life of the dies used to mint quarters in the Satin Finish mint sets?

cladking

The mint hasn't given many clues yet about this but I'd guess the Chrome plating that
imparts the satin finish would tend to cause the dies to wear a little longer. They had
been getting about 30,000 strikes per die for the quarter. They also seem to have raised
their standards a little at lest for the '05 sets so your numbers may not be far off.

The mint set coins have long been struck under higher tonnage and at slower speeds on
the old vertical presses. This still holds true. Most mint set dies were used to strike reg-
ular issues after they were retired. This is probably still true as well.

Russellhome

Billy Crawford told me the same thing about mint set dies being used agian for business strikes. With everybody searching their MN quarters - someone should eventually find the SMS version of the DDRs as business strikes. When or if this happens, I expect we'll know for sure.

Thanks for the reply