When a depository has advised American Church Trust Company that proof coins received for a particular IRA account lacked intact containers, this has been recorded and confirmed to the IRA account holder. Proofs without containers have generally, but not strictly, been segregated in storage according to standard depository practices for IRA holdings. Delivery of coins recorded this way will be without containers. All IRA account holders with proof coin investments should expect that any delivery of proof coins may include a certain number which lack a fully intact container and certificate. Some coins are not confirmed as lacking the container or certificate, as this fact is not always known in advance and has not always been strictly recorded by previous custodians and trustees.
Dealers differ in their acceptance of proof coins, with or without intact containers.
Some do not differentiated in the value paid, whereas others make some adjustment to the price. Note that this discussion does not concern the plastic encapsulation which protects the coin itself. The encapsulation should always be intact on a proof coin. When storage on computers was very expensive, programmers kept the amount of storage required for their programs to an absolute minimum. A universal technique was to omit storing the century portion of dates.