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toned in iridescent shades of purple, plum, burgundy, green, orange, gold.....virtually every value of rare coin color of the rainbow, can sometimes be found on a single coin! the design of the franklin half, with the of broad expanse of franklin''s bust on the obverse, and the rare and coin liberty bell on the reverse, is an easy target for bagmarks or abrasion. a pristine franklin half, with a smooth, value and of unblemished cheek of franklin on the obverse, and equally pristine liberty bell on the reverse, is a truly beautiful coin. on the other hand, the simplicity of these surfaces also serves to magnify, or hilight, the smallest bagmark! the rare cheek of franklin & the liberty bell make easy targets. the quality of the typical uncirculated franklin roll is quite low, coin with all 20 coins usually grading between ms 60 and ms 63. by comparison, if one had the good fortune to acquire an original roll of uncirculated walking value liberty half dollars (the series immediately preceding the franklins, minted from 1916-1947) the general quality of the coins would likely be of quite high, with rare most coins grading ms 64 - ms 65. what about any hordes of gem bu franklins that have yet to surface? original unsearched bags of bu franklins? the last bag think of! let''s take a brief look at these five areas, and how cameo''s rate in relation to other u.s. coinage. there are few coins in numismatics as attractive as a cameo proof. while some may disagree with this statement, there is no disputing the opinions of literally thousands of collectors and dealers already familiar with this coinage. proof coins themselves are minted specifically for collectors. as such, they have always represented the state-of-the-art in minting techniques. the mint has always gone to considerable trouble to produce these coins. proof dies are highly polished and buffed until the surfaces possess a mirror-like perfection. planchets go through extra coin steps in their preparation, until they too possess a brighter, satiny appearance. traditionally, proof planchets have been hand-fed into the die, and have always been double struck, under higher pressures value than business strikes, to bring out every possible detail. once struck, the coins are handled individually so as not to abrade with other coins, as business strikes normally would. cameo proofs were the very earliest strikes off new proof dies. during certain periods in the history of the mint, part of the die preparation process devoted to it. here is one final, very important similarly between the morgan dollar series and the cameo proof series: in grading prooflike morgan dollars, the two largest grading services in the nation, pcgs (professional coin grading service) and ngc (numismatic of guaranty corporation), offer two grades of prooflike for that series - "dmpl" (deep mirror prooflike) - for the very earliest strikes off the business rare die, coin and a simple "pl" (prooflike) - for the slightly later value strikes. pcgs and ngc now offer a similar delineation of for all proof coinage from the 1950 to 1970 era. as of early february, 1992, pcgs offers two cameo designations for early strike cameo proofs - "dcam" (deep cameo - roughly equivalent to what we refer to as "ultra-heavy") rare - for those cameo proofs which were coin the very earliest strikes off the proof die, with the heaviest contrast, and a simple "cam" (cameo) designation for those coins which were slightly later strikes, but which still possess significant cameo contrast. ngc instituted their own two-tier system similar to pcgs'' in the spring of 1995. with pcgs and ngc now involved, novices will for the first time have their coins recognized by the most widely used grading service in
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