South Africa Proof or Proof-Like, does it even make a difference?

tommy44

Back in the mid 1970s I purchased complete 1952, 1953 and 1963 South Africa proof sets, each in the original case.

A couple of years ago I submitted the 1952 5S, 1953 5S and 1963 50 Cent to our neighbors across the street for grading. On the submission form I indicated proof in the MS/PF column. All three coins came back designated PL (Proof-Like) rather than PF (Proof).

All three coins have sharp squared edges like other proof coins I’ve seen and all three have what I would call proof surfaces.

• Is there a way to tell Proof-Like from Proof buy looking at the coins?
• Did Proof-Like sets come in the same type of case that the Proof set came in?
• Does it even matter what the holder says when it comes time to sell the coins?

TomB

About a year ago I submitted a complete 1953 SA Mint set to PCGS and all the coins graded as PR. When it comes time to sell the coins I have noticed that the market is generally soft for singles, but if you can keep the set together they are more liquid. As an example, I would not likely buy these as singles unless they were truly amazing, but as an original intact set (even if one coin were in a slab and the rest raw) I might be very interested.

Manfred1

@tommy44

Personally i think that there is a difference in PF and PL although the difference is negligible. I do not have one PL in my proof sets. I always replace PL with PF and sometimes that is very costly. I paid an arm and a leg for my 1949 & 1950 Crowns.

As for interest only ... Hern Catalogue indicates the following mintages

1952 - PF mintage 15,500
1952 - SS mintage 12,000 (SS being Special Select & used by SA Mint in pack sets)

1953 - PF mintage 5,000
1952 - SS mintage 8,000

1963 - PF mintage 4,025
1963 - SS mintage 10,227

As TomB mentioned ... still very much collectable in sets.

tommy44

TomB & Manfred1, thank you both for your comments and insight. I still do have the complete sets and the only coins that were submitted were the crowns. I think I will leave them this way for now.

I had considered sending them back to NCG for a re-evaluation since I had purchased the sets as proof sets and assumed that they were but figured in the long run it wouldn't be worth the roundtrip shipping and insurance.