Walter Breen
What follows is an updating, in somewhat simplified form, of my 1953 "monograph on proofs, published by Wayte Raymond as part of his Coin Collector's Journal series of pamphlets. This monograph was based in part on Mr. Raymond's own records (those in turn derived in part from material in the Ryder, Ellsworth, Newcomb, Brand, Col. Green, Newcomer, and other enormous holdings). I have in the intervening years learned, the hard way, that Wayte Raymond was, for all his undeniable experience and ability, no more expert in distinguishing proofs from first strikes than are most other non-specialists. As a result, some early dates of proofs appeared to him to be less rare than they have in the meantime proved to be. This has also been accentuated by the game of Musical Chairs played by some individual coins at conventions. A single early proof quarter dollar might change hands five times during the same convention, be shown or offered (with different groups of coins) four times to the same dealer, at different prices, and perhaps have been dipped in the evening between bourse sessions to remove distinctive spots or tarnish streaks. And so it would be, understandably, recorded as at least three, perhaps four, different specimens. I have at least a dozen specific instances in mind of this very thing happening, the truth only coming out later when during the present research I managed to get each dealer in turn to tell me from whom he had gotten his coin. In other instances stolen coins would be cleaned and bought in good faith by unsuspecting dealers.
Conversely, other rarities have turned out to exist in unsuspectedly large numbers. This is more nearly the normal state of affairs. Many transactions never become known to the general numismatic public, others remain known only to dealer and customer until years afterward; but estates are eventually dispersed, and some museums let go their holdings after 50 or 60 years, and British auction houses such as Sotheby's (perhaps better known to the general public through fabulous sales of antiques and paintings) bring out catalogues of the numismatic collections of this or that nobleman unknown outside England or the Continent. And as a result hitherto unknown specimens - or pieces long forgotten about, or believed lost -come onto the market. Also, recent rechecks of some very old auction catalogues forced me to revise rarity ratings, by confronting me with photographs of proof coins not earlier known to exist. I have restudied thewhole series and many conclusions herein may come as a surprise.
Despite numerous publications by Eric Newman, myself, and Don Taxay among others, collectors still generally continue to think of "proof" as a condition higher in the value scale than "uncirculated" - but in the same scale, along with Extremely Fine, Very Fine and lower grades. It has not yet generally gotten across that proofs are a very different kind of thing from regular uncirculated coins, even when struck from the same dies. The distinction is continually being blurred by dealer cupidity in the presence of difficult decisions such as some Morgan dollars, some gold dollars and three-dollar pieces, and some silver coins of 1879-91, or when a coin shows brilliant mirrorlike surfaces together with bag marks and equivocal relief or rounded borders. The tendency is always to sell as a proof; old Tom Elder used to say that in selling coins he graded them with the naked eye, as that is the way people look at them most of the time in or out of exhibit cases. Also, people have tended to identify proof coins as principally those with mirrorlike fields, whether or not they show more relief detail than regular uncirculated pieces; matte proofs are often, even now, confused with uncirculated coins, and some bronze matte proofs have been so drastically cleaned that they can no longer be diagnosed as such beyond reasonable doubt.
What is stranger than the above, the same confusion existed on much the same level among mint personnel, especially during the early and mid 19th century; and before 1817 it is uncertain whether the coiners had figured out the trick of replacing the ejected coin (caught in a chamois or with heavy leather gloves) onto the lower die for a second impression, or as many more as seemed necessary, for maximum clarity. Chapter I (The Proofing Process, above) reiterated that the term "proof" properly refers to coins made like medals, not to surface appearance; the whole point of medallically created coins - no matter what surface they were given - was to exhibit to the recipients a finer quality of die-impression (due to multiple blows as in medals) than would normally be possible with business strikes. Evidence of the confusion among mint personnel: (1) Authentic proofs exist made with only one blow from the dies, rather than the usual 2 to 4. Their proof character, or rather their proof intent, is satisfactorily established by their being of date-denomination combinations known to have been issued only in proof state (e.g. half cents in the 1840's, 1877 nickel coins, 1886 and 1887/6 3¢ nickels, etc.). (2) In other instances, pairs of dies known to have been used solely for proofs - the half-cents of the eighteen forties are a notorious series of instances, as are 1873 2¢ pieces and some post-1878 trade dollars - exist on imperfectly polished blanks, sometimes in addition receiving only one blow from the dies apiece, and these carelessly made coins survive as testimony to mint slackness in times when little importance was attached to quality control, or when proofing was assigned to inexperienced personnel. Coins of this sort, intended as proofs but given only a single blow from the dies, are in actuality mint errors though seldom recognized as such. (3) More startlingly still, there exist proof sets, many dated in the 1860's and 1870's in the original paper wrappers in which they were obtained from the Philadelphia Mint, and untouched since then, which contain a mixture of proofs and uncirculated coins, some of these being frosty, others early strikes from dies retaining polish and which might have been earlier used for coining proofs. This fact was first publicized by Don Taxay, and I have confirmed it by examining such sets. It appears, however, to have been first recorded in the auction catalogue of the Matthew A. Stickney collection (1907), which contained a large number of sets of coins dated from 1843 on (lots 1787 and following), obtained from the mint in the year of issue; some of these are indeed proof sets complete from half cent to dollar, others contain one to four uncirculated coins, generally silver. In short, uncirculated coins were substituted for proofs in sets when the supply of proofs of particular denominations had run out and there was no time to make up new proofs. These sets are listed later on and an analysis given. This may also account for the peculiar mixed quality of the sets of 1827-1867 inclusive in the Joseph J. Mickley auction of 1867, which (like Stickney's group) lacked numerous examples of which proofs are today known to exist. In some instances the sets might have been assembled later rather than being "original sets," obtained "as is" from the mint, but of this there is no proof. Similarly with the sets in the Lorin G. Parmelee collection, sold in 1890, and in this case some of them are known to have been assembled.
Proof coins were also occasionally given out in lieu of regular business strikes when the latter were unavailable. It is common knowledge, evidently originating with Mr. Mickley himself that Joseph J. Mickley went to the Philadelphia Mint some time in late 1827 - probably before New Year's Eve anyway - and tendered a Spanish or Mexican silver dollar asking for a quarter dollar of the year 1827 as part of his change. He would have been satisfied with one regular business strike for his date set, but what he got was four proofs! It seems that no business strikes were as yet available, and he had to take his change in something - and so the coiner, or some clerk, gave him the four proof quarters. This story was repeated many times during the 1860's, when the Lilliendahl, McCoy and Mickley proof 1827's appeared and reappeared at auction. A somewhat similar story occurs in Harry Boosel's monograph on 1873 coinages (Hewitt Bros., first edition, 1960, p.35) in a letter preserved in the National Archives, from one of the Mint Superintendent's clerks to a collector named Benjamin F. Young:
Mint of the U. States
Philadelphia, April 15, 1873