First i would like to say hello everyone, I've lurked here a few times and think this is a wonderful forum. I have a question which confuses me pretty good. I bought a 1965 Canadian PL set at a flea market and when looking it up in Krause i noticed in '65 they also made a specimen set, all i can see in the difference is the substantial change of the price. The coins themselves appear to be the same, can someone please enlighten me as to what the difference is? BTW, If this is in the wrong place i sincerely apologize.
Calgary coin is a good place for information and they do enjoy putting forth what they can so I'll steal a couple of paragraphs from them. For more go to calgarycoin.com. PROOF-LIKE sometimes abbreviated as PL, is an odd category. These are coins minted for special mint sets made for sale to collectors, and not intended for circulation. The mint never claimed they were anything other than choice MS coins, but are very early strikes from fresh dies and were selected out for the sets as nice coins before going through the entire mint handling process so tend have have higher lustre and fewer bag marks than MS coins. However they are not perfect mark-free coins and average PL-64 to PL-66 right out of the sets. Any experienced collector or dealer will know one when he see's one. The term Proof-like was invented by dealers to differentiate these from normal MS coins, for reasons I will discuss below. Proof-like sets were first sold to the public in 1954, although single PL coins earlier than 1954 do exist. Specimen which is sometime abbreviated as SPEC or just SP. Specimen coins were also minted for special mint sets but are different from PL coins in that the dies are specially finished to give the coins either a higher lustre or sometimes a specific matte finish, and the coins are double struck to give sharper images, normally higher sharper rims, and design meet the fields at a sharper angle. Specimens have been made since the beginning of Canadian coinage, and early sets were used for official government presentations, although in 1908, 1937 and 1967 sets were made for sale to collectors. Starting in 1971 specimen sets made to sell to collectors became a standard part of the mints product line, and such sets are today generally very common. Like proof coins, specimen coins were never intended to circulate so did not go through any of the standard mint handling systems that put bag marks on MS coins. Thus specimen coins are relatively mark free and start off in the SP-66 to SP-68 range. Hope that's helpful.
