Grand Canyon Five Ounce Silver Coin Variety Discovered

A new variety has been discovered in the United States Mint’s America the Beautiful Five Ounce Silver Coin series. In fact, it signifies the first variety to be discovered and documented in the five ounce series which includes both bullion and uncirculated quality silver coins.

The variety has been identified on some of the 2010-P Grand Canyon National Park Five Ounce Silver Uncirculated Coins. The select Grand Canyon coins failed to receive the special post-strike finish during their production.

The United States Mint facility in Philadelphia starts with the same five ounce planchets for both the investment grade bullion and collector uncirculated silver coins. The uncirculated coins are differentiated during the production process with the inclusion of a ‘P’ mintmark on the obverse, and then further treated with a vapor blasting technique.

This vapor blasting is described by Mint officials as similar to sand blasting. However, whereas sand blasting typically uses dry media propelled by compressed air, the vapor blasting method uses water vapor and ceramic media to achieve a desired matte finish.

For unknown reasons, some of the Grand Canyon Five Ounce Silver Uncirculated Coins apparently missed the post-strike treatment and were packaged and shipped to customers. It is unclear as to how many of the 27,000 Grand Canyon Coins which were minted would qualify as one of the new varieties.

Those who may have received one in question may want to consider having them graded to achieve an acknowledgement of the variety by an independent third party. NGC (http://www.ngccoin.com/), one of the major coin grading services, has already designated the new variety as "Light Finish." NGC will denote such on qualified specimens it examines if the owner opts for the special NGC VarietyPlus® option.