Do 1987 Silver Eagles Have A Superior Finnish

[Eyebone]

I'm a hoarder and occasionally I like to fondle my PMs.

I want to say that I am disappointed with the appearance of most of my silver Eagles.

I'm looking at a tube of '09s and the finish is dull, not frosted exactly but just not shiny.

I have '05s, '00s,'04s and one 1987, now the '87 looks beautiful, very shiny like I think silver should look.

I know the mint retools every so often so the looks of the coins will change slightly from year to year.

Was '87 a good year?

Are all the 87s better looking or just the one I have?

[ximmy]

There's regular bullion finish, a burnished one (uncirculated), and proof for most years...

then other special ones... reverse proof finish... etc.

[madfranks]

When a coin gets struck on a brand new die, you will get a very beautiful, sometimes even prooflike strike. And then as the die keeps working, it wears down and the strikes aren't as good. Coins struck at the end of a die's life cycle will be dull won't grade very high. Since the last few years the mint has been overloaded striking tons of silver eagles to meet "unprecedented" demand, maybe they have been overextending the life cycles of the dies, which results in lower quality coins all around.

That might explain it.

[ximmy]

Here, I tried to take a pic for you of the differences, but my photography skills suck...

I posted a 1987 burnished, probably like you have, a regular and a proof :-\

[1970 silver art]

I think that the 1988 and the 1989 SAE's also had that burnished finish.

EDIT: I think that the burnished look continued through 1991 and changed to the regular bullion finish starting with the 1992 along with a change to a larger numbered year font. If I am wrong on this, then feel free to correct me.

[Eyebone]

ximmy, thank you .

Another thing about th '87, the stars are more prominent than the other years.

Over her right shoulder they really stand out.

Is there any thing else that determines "proof' besides finish, like a big P ?

[Sparky]

I think they started to take on the "burnished" look in 1998. Here's 1986, 1987, 2006, and 2007. I think the old liquid silver look was superior. Like you said, it looks like silver.