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2006-W 2 coin 20th Anniversary Gold/Silver Eagle Set Statistics:

(All stats re-compiled May 24, 2007)

*Please take a look at my most recent guide after you vote for this one... "I'm Being Scammed!!! Here's what I'm doing..."

1. Everyone is asking the question... How many NGC blue label MS70 20th Anniv Silver Eagles from the two coin gold/silver set (mintage 20,000) are there?  So let's get to it... for starters, we know there are zero 20th Anniversary  Silver Eagles graded MS70 by PCGS.
2. Ms. Terri Gilbert from PCGS confirmed that PCGS does not distinguish between the uncirculated 20th Anniversary American Eagle from the 3 coin silver set and the uncirculated silver eagle from the 2 coin gold/silver set.  Therefore, the population of the latter coin just became 270,000 vice 20,000 if you  sent it to PCGS.  Even if they did distinguish, like I said, they will not assign a grade of MS70 to this coin anyway.
3. Although NGC does distinguish between the two uncirculated eagles when they slab the coins (Black label vs Blue label), Ms. Lisa Berzins from NGC confirmed that NGC will not distinguish between the two coins in their price guide.  In other words, they will only publish numbers of 20th Anniversary Uncirculated Silver Eagles as a whole, regardless of which label the coins received.  What does this mean to us?  It means we will never know exactly how many blue label silver eagles are out there (I'm not talking about Early Release blue labels... there is a difference).  All we can do is speculate.  Below, I'll show you the best method for estimating the exact number of Blue Label MS70 Silver Eagles.  For starters, we know that, of the almost 33,000 20th Anniversary uncirculated eagles submitted to NGC for grading, 16.41% made the grade of MS70.  So, how many of these will receive the blue label?  Here's the simple math:
1. 32,642 uncirculated 20th Ann. Silver Eagles were submitted to NGC as of May 24th, 2007.
2. 29,760 proof 20th Ann. Silver Eagles were submitted.
3. 32,784 reverse proof 20th Ann. were submitted.
4. Why are these numbers different if the coins will only be certified "20th Anniversary" when submitted in the original US Mint sealed boxes?
1. Here's why:
1. Reverse Proofs were only produced as 20th Anniversary from the Mint, so NGC and PCGS will certify them as "20th Anniversary" even if they are submitted on their own.  This explains the larger number of reverse proofs.
2. There is only one way that the proof coin can receive the "20th Anniversary" label... it must come from an original three coin set (A10) that has been submitted for grading in the original Mint-sealed box.  There is no other way.
3. There are two ways that the uncirculated coin can receive the "20th Anniversary" label...
1. From a Mint-sealed three coin set (a10).
2. From a Mint-sealed TWO COIN set (A11)
5. That last point was the key to the solution.  Here's the math... Since the proof coin can only receive the label if they come from the three coin set, we know that there must have been an accompanying uncirculated coin for every proof that was certified.  Therefore, we know that 29,760 uncirculated coins came from the Three coin set.  Since there are only two ways the uncirculated coin can receive the label, we know that the rest MUST have come from the Two coin set.  Therefore, we know that 2,882 (or 32,643 minus 29,760) Two coin sets were submitted to NGC for grading.
6. Of those 2,882, how many received the perfect grade (MS70)?  The best guess we can make is to use the overall certification rate for perfect 20th Anniversary Silver Eagles (from both sets combined).  We know this to be 16.41% as of May 24th, 2007. 

4. Therefore, the number of perfect MS70 Silver Eagles certified by NGC as 20th Anniversary with the Blue Label can best be estimated as 473 (16.41% of 2,882) as of May 24th.  You can see why this coin sells in a matter of hours every time it's offered on EBAY individually.

5. We can verify this by also looking at the 20th Anniversary Gold Eagle submissions:  If we use the same math as above, we know there were 2,919 proofs and 5,757 uncirculated Gold Eagles submitted to NGC for grading as of 24 May.  Therefore, there must have been 2,919 uncirculated coins submitted as part of the Three Coin Gold set and the rest, 2,838 (5,757 minus 2,919) must have come from the Two Coin Gold/Silver set.  Although we cannot explain the difference (2,882 minus 2,838) of 44 coins, this calculation does lend to the credibility of the calculations above.  We know at least one of those 44 (cert #2094613-004) is actually a reverse proof that was mis-labeled by NGC as a PF70 Ultra Cameo... we suspect that the other 43 share a similar fate. 

6. As a side note, the uncirculated Gold Eagles are certifying MS70 as "20th Anniversary" by NGC at a rate of 51.16%.  However, there is no reason to attempt to calculate how many of these originated from the 2 coin set, since these are indistinguishable from the remaining 20th Anniversary MS70 Gold Eagles which came from the 3 Gold Coin set... they all receive the same blue labels.  So, there are actually 2,945 NGC MS70 20th Anniversary Blue Label Gold Eagles (as of 24 May 2007).

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Good luck collectors!

Semper Fi,

"ShakeMyHand"