When watching a video of Mike making the coins once, I saw bare hands/fingers being used to place the Holo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NyzDY7NUOo^^
your answer?
Seems the manufacturing process was NOT sterile - Note the upload date. Use this as a reference for coins where the holo is at issue. Coins around this period included ?
QUOTE
A short clip of applying holograms to Casascius physical bitcoins. Helpers are placing private keys from a jar onto the coins and also peeling the holograms onto transfer tape. Another helper puts the coins on a flatbed scanner for later identification and funding."
Thats a LOT of handling....
People have been so focussed on the Slabs and capsules yet it seems sensible to wind back to the very start of the creation process and look for early issues.
To the point that a coin has even yet to be struck. How were the blanks handled? How were they moved around? How many hands/fingers touched them throughout the lifecycle of creation? etc etc. Think like that and I believe you will find you answers far faster
No disrespect to Mike in any way, but he wasn't the Royal Mint. I would describe the process of his creating coins as semi pro hobby craft in the early days. Issues would easily creep in as appears to be the case with the early coins and their holos.
If this was the case for his 2013 silver coins then there would be noticeable finger prints on the coins which there werent.
When dealing with silver coins it is difficult to apply the entire process without adding finger prints to the silver coins without using gloves.
Brass not so much (even though I tend to use gloves for those as well).
It would seem the finger print issue is not the cause of it as it would be obviously visible on the surface of his silver coins from 2013.
I covered the Silvers above by acknowledging that they appear to have marked a change in process of manufacture. However, manual handling of the Priv key AND the holo,
by multiple persons, appears NOT to have changed (Mike can clarify?). So even if the Silver coins are treated and handled with utmost care AND with gloves, the keys and holos were not, ergo the perfect entry point for chemicals.
If two persons body grease/sweat mix it can create additional chemicals which can have a noticeable impact. This is well known.
In light of the video itself, I believe there's now compelling evidence indicating that the manual elements of production are a very likely contender for being the cause of the issues currently being faced by Coin owners.
Again, I think Mike is probably the one best placed to highlight production issues of the time.
What was the humidity in the room like?
Room Temperature?
Were people hot/warm/cold while working?
Had the room been recently decorated?
Had anyone had pizza that day, afternoon, evening? (you get the idea)
There are so many variables possible during production that, if you have satisfied yourselves that the slabs absolutely cannot be the issue, then by axiom the creation process MUST play a more significant part in the investigation.
Currently, all evidence points to production as the weak point and most likely cause of dots and spotting. It may be the Holos themselves at the point of THEIR manufacture.
Am I correct in thinking that the paper used for priv keys was removed from the list of culprits?
Viz
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