The Days of Cheap Raw Moderns are Over.
cladking
Posts: 28,331 ✭✭✭✭✭
I was recently referring to the broad based strength in moderns on another thread;
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/comment/12948391#Comment_12948391
Today I saw a buy list for nice mint sets that listed some of the Ike years at $8 per set. This is more than a $4 premium to face value for the same sets that went for no premium just a year or two ago. It was possible until now to buy sets and find a few really nice coins with little outlay of cash but if you're paying a $4 premium then something like a '76 type I Ike will cost you nearly $1000 in sets just to find a nice Gem. Sure they'll be other nice coins and lots of BU rolls to help defray your costs but it's no longer something that can be done on the cheap.
There are no BU rolls of clads except what comes from mint sets and it has become prohibitively expensive to search sets. This will have two effects in the short run: It will cause an explosive increase in the prices of BU rolls and it will cause a severe tightening of the market for high grades. This might not mean much higher prices for top grades because these markets are a different dynamic but it will severely restrict the supply of fresh coins coming from the graders. It's possible that there will be enough coins in storage to negate some of this restriction and the number of coins submitted may not fall off nearly so much as the number of very high grades falls off. Obviously if these prices stick then sets will come out of the woodwork but several reasons exist that this increase supply will be barely visible.
As many as 75% of some dates of mint sets are already destroyed and most of the coins put into circulation.
Large percentages of surviving sets have tarnish that is unacceptable to buyers.
Many of the sets in dealer inventory are cherry picked now days.
Any substantial increase in price will have a greatly outsized effect on demand. ie- increasing prices of collectibles tends to cause more demand rater than less. This is especially likely with clad coins because to date there is very very little demand and the common wisdom is that buying mint and proof sets is just "dead money". If prices increase it will be proof that supply has finally fallen to even lower levels than the demand. Most 1964 to date nickels are scarcer in BU than the '50-D yet you can buy them by the roll for less than the '50-D if you can find them.
I guess we'll see.
Don't expect to see many of these sets walking into coin shops if the prices stay up. Much of the activity will be at the wholesale level which is where most of the available sets are.
Comments
If the current surge in the coin market is now raising the price of modern proof and mint sets, I have two things to say:
When there is more money in the economy and the same or less goods… prices go up. Doesn’t really mean more demand, just the old demand is willing to pay more
That said years of neglect is it’s own kind of attrition.
11.5$ Southern Dollars, The little “Big Easy” set
Every time I have seen a set walk into a shop, the owner tells the person with the sets to cut them up and spend them. With any luck, higher prices will bring some shop owners to begin buying sets, and then bring them into the wholesale market.
“The Days of Raw Moderns are Over.”
I wouldn’t read too much into a handful or two of certain mint set prices moving up. Often times, such movement is directly linked to specific dealer promotions or telemarketing campaigns. In the case of proof sets, I still get flooded with hundreds and hundreds of early modern proof sets (70s and 80s) monthly, if not weekly, and I believe my buy prices are contributing to a number of the + in the Guide(s).
My daughter, Lauren, just informed me that I have the better part of 1,000 proof sets of JUST the (6) Ike dates (73-78) that I am not using and can be sold off any time. I expect to list them on the dealer network later this month, or next month, and move them out. Take the 1977 proof set for example that the other thread spoke about the $4 “wholesale” value of the 50C. I currently plan to sell off my entire “stash” at roughly $7/set or so plus shipping, and the set includes, of course, the proof Ike dollar (worth $3 or so), the Lincoln cent, nickel, dime and quarter too. I don’t care if the “breakup value” of just the 50C and $1 is roughly the $7 price. It’s just not worth the manpower and expense to get a “free” 1977 proof cent, nickel, dime and/or quarter. If it was, I would be doing it as well as many coin companies (some are doing it, of course).
Conclusion - there will still likely be plenty of raw moderns from the 70s and 80s (even from 40-50 years ago) available in proof and mint sets for at least a few more years! Some might cost a few dollars a set more though!
As always, just my 2 cents.
Wondercoin
Sure, they're very common, but the point is, only the top 0.1% in quality are in the top 0.1% in terms of Quality 😉
Liberty: Parent of Science & Industry
They will never run out...
They just get passed around.
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I have several, 6 or 8, Ike dollars in mint boxes and a couple raw. No sets. Have not looked at them in years. Do not remember what years or composition. Should check them out. Will put that on my winter list of things to do.
Cheers, RickO
This is not the whole story. The hazy, crappy ones get passed around. But better coins result in sets being broken up. And even some average sets get broken up for people who put the coins in their albums. Retail sellers also break them up to put together sets in fancy holders.
Over time, the population does drop. Eventually the only ones left will be the ones too ugly to even put in an album.
Here comes the elderly couple with cardboard boxes filled with 1970's era proof and mint sets ...
"As many as 75% of some dates of mint sets are already destroyed and most of the coins put into circulation."
Cladking, which dates have been hit the hardest in your opinion?
80s on. They don't sell for much more than face value so there is little point in keeping partial or average sets. I do think 75% is high, however.
...Large percentages of surviving sets have tarnish...
...Many of the sets in dealer inventory are cherry picked now days...
In my humble opinion, these two points are the reason these might still be sought after and survive. Esp. If the dealers catch on.
Example: Toner
An ordinary common clad coin that could be turned into a more valuable coin because of its tone.
Example: Variety
1968s ddr
"Jesus died for you and for me, Thank you,Jesus"!!!
--- If it should happen I die and leave this world and you want to remember me. Please only remember my opening Sig Line.Yeah, the dealers don't know...
I'm mostly speaking of the variety factor.
"Jesus died for you and for me, Thank you,Jesus"!!!
--- If it should happen I die and leave this world and you want to remember me. Please only remember my opening Sig Line.I wonder how many of them just dump them in the bank...
The elderly couple bought all these shiny coins in mint packages decades ago, saved them all these years, then just up and spend them? No.
The heirs, might, and the dealers might tell them to spend, bilut the old folks think the sets are worth a fortune. So does the OP.
Liberty: Parent of Science & Industry
I've dumped sets in the Coinstar myself, including partial proof sets on occasion. I've also advised heirs to do it. When the sets are selling for 10% over face value, what is a dealer going to pay for them? I can't bring myself to offer less than face value for them, but they aren't even worth the time it takes to cut them up and dump them in the coinstar.
The same with BU rolls of state quarters and presidential dollars. I dumped $400 face in shotgun rolls of state quarters and presidential dollars into a coinstar. I had sold about $200 face in rolls that people would buy. The others simply cannot be easily sold. They aren't worth shipping and they really aren't worth hauling to coin shows to try and get 10% over face value for them.
Use them for tips and you just might stimulate the seed of a new collector.
Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value. Zero. Voltaire. Ebay coinbowlllc
'65, '69, and '71. The '70 isn't that far behind. The destruction in the last several years has been extreme and it's difficult to get a good idea of what is being cut up. Since '08 there has been a flood of these on the market and no buyers so all the cheap dates must be getting destroyed. But by the same token the inexpensive dates are the most popular for auctions and estate sales so they are being set aside. The perception that the sets are common and every coin in the sets are distressingly common is the problem. Since they are common and price guides dramatically understate their real value the demand is suppressed. Even among the collectors of moderns there is a hesitancy to pay market price since the guides list everything so low. The artificially suppressed markets causes even more destruction of the raw material.
A lot of destruction in the last five years is being caused by the coins tarnishing. Ironically the tarnishing is most affecting the scarcest coins ('69 and '71 quarters) as most of the coins in these two dates are tarnished. But more recent dates, especially the '74 to '80 sets are going bad fast now. None of the coins in these dates are tough but there is a steady demand for Ikes and half dollars so they have strong wholesale prices.
The SMS years are hardly immune. A lot of these are tarnished and more than a few have been destroyed over the years to supply the demand for nice half dollars.
There are going to be a lot of big surprises throughout these sets. Coins that are considered very common are probably rare or scarce unless nice examples exist in rolls. There are almost no rolls of dimes and quarters and nickel supply is very spotty. Cents were set aside in substantial numbers but most were bad when they were saved and have tarnished in storage. '84 cents with nice attractive surfaces are virtually unavailable in mint sets. Some cents come nice in the set like the '68 but now they all have carbon spots.
About half of pre-75 sets are gone, one third of '75 to '85, and one quarter of '85 to '95. But it's the tarnish that is driving prices higher I believe. '79 and '80 sets are tarnished and the "common" SBA's are $2.25 but the highly vaunted '81 is not tarnished with the three mint set only SBA's actually brings only $2 each.
Today a lot of the tarnished sets can be saved but unless there is substantial increase in demand they will not be. After a mint set coin has been tarnished a while nothing can save it. Coins should be removed from mint set plastic and stabilized in alcohol, acetone, or other means. Once proof set coins haze there seems little that can be done. The number of "raw moderns" hitting circulation due to the various forms of tarnish is almost certain to continue to increase even if there are higher prices. Dealers won't take sets to shows to make 10% and they won't clean 12 coins for $4.
I should have seen this tarnish way back in '02 and it would have saved me a lot of grief. Back in those days it was just a coin here and there rather than whole batches of mint sets.
Indeed. By ignoring these sets collectors have assured their destruction and the lack of collections formed from them.
At the current time the local coin shop just has no demand for modern coins. Even rising prices might not much affect dealer behavior except to get them to buy and ship them.
It will take a lot of new demand to get them to try to stock these coins. I believe the remaining supply is hardly even sufficient to stock every dealer.
Proof sets are far more available. They had higher mintages, lower attrition, and more demand. I believe stronger prices for proof sets has more to do with stronger demand rather than supply dropping so low.
It's possible to raise bid prices without buying a large number of sets. The authors of Greysheet pay very close attention to markets. They also have the only pricelist that has any meaning to the value of moderns. If you follow BU rolls this is the base price for raw moderns. Redbook and all the other catalogers are woefully out of date or just plain never had it right.
Base prices for most coins is far lower than most collectors realize. These are the wholesale prices that are actually available at almost any time.
Very few collectors or dealers ever dismantled mint or proof sets. Before 1980 there was a built in loss and the profit peaked about 2020 when there was a built in profit of only about 25%. It's a lot of work for little gain.
It's not that I disagree with your conclusion so much as I see it is dependent on all the forces acting on these markets to stay constant. I believe one force will quickly take over and that is that in collectibles there is a tendency for demand to increase as prices increase. People see rising prices and they are curious to the cause and don't want to be left out. Nostalgia is a powerful force in most individuals and everybody has fond memories of at least a few of the last 56 years. These coins have been ubiquitous for most Americans' lifetimes yet even non-collectors take notice when they see a 50 year old clad in good condition.
You'll certainly prove to be right if there isn't a geometrically increasing demand,. At the current time demand is still so weak it can increase geometrically for a long while.
I've walked into a coin shop more times to see a dealer actually cutting up mint sets to put in the till than I have to see a customer inquire about or purchase mint sets!! And for every time I saw a dealer cutting mint sets there were two times I got a BU mint set coin in change.
I love anecdotal evidence. If you collect it properly it's often more accurate than empirical evidence.
In all my years of traveling to shops and shows and even targeting places where I should have the most luck, I never once found an original roll of 1969 quarters. I even went to Greencastle to see if I could buy some from Julian Jarvis in the 1970's. He told me he'd only bought two bags from the bank that year and they were such poor sellers that he took most of the second one back. He said trying to get rolls out of his customer list was extremely difficult. He didn't think he could put together a roll set on a bet. Most don't know this but he was probably the largest supplier of BU rolls for decades. The coins just aren't out there. The mint sets are out there but now a lot are gone and the survivors are tarnished.
But in the early-'90's I was leaving a northern Illinois shop and was given two 1969 BU quarters in change. He had just bought 4 of the nicest BU rolls imaginable and I was able to get all but about five coins for face value! He had thrown away the paper rolls already.
I agree with you about some of the earlier rolls. But I'm not young enough to sit on state quarters and presidential dollars for 50 years until they become "rare".
A lot of flat pack proof sets are cut up for cameos... What's left is put through the counter, bagged and sold as 90%. I suspect the same is for the clad sets...
Isn't there a song called "The Days of Raw Moderns"?
Or maybe I'm thinking of "The Days of Wine and Rollses"...
I thought it was " The days of whine and Roosies"
I think, my latest theory, coins struck with the master die (not by working dies) are awesome!
Leo
The more qualities observed in a coin, the more desirable that coin becomes!
My Jefferson Nickel Collection
I concur with @cladking about the 1969 quarters, I was looking for nice ones a couple of decades ago and still look for them off and on. Must are dull and lifeless or look beat up. The one decent one I finally found I submitted for grading and it came back MS-65, which is probably above average for that date.
I don't see retirement coming by selling that quarter, and who knows how much demand there will be for it in the future
10-4,
My Instagram picturesErik
My registry sets
Don't give up hope. People have been saying that three cent nickels are underappreciated, too, and due to be noticed- any day now, for sure.
I hear this now and then, and have to wonder if anyone actually started collecting because they were left a tip they were encouraged not to treat as income.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars
MS-65 is typical for nice '69 quarters from sets. About 4% are what I call "gemmy" which ranges from really nice MS-64's to MS-67. About 3% will grade MS-65 or higher as they were minted meaning there should be lots and lots of them. With a mintage of two million there were about 80,000 nice gemmy coins made. But these coins were never placed into collections and the number of sets is down to around half a million with most of the quarters tarnished. Nice attractive chBU '69 quarters simply don't exist in the numbers sufficient to supply a mass market. These are still very cheap coins so the attrition is still very high. The number of unattractive BU coins isn't very high either and there are no AU's or even VF's. Frankly I'd be surprised if there are even a million circs in VG or better that aren't covered in little dings and scrapes. Quarters don't get enough wear any longer to smooth out the many collision they encounter in machines. They are used only a few times before being returned to the bank.
Prices for choice and Gem world moderns are just going through the roof. It seems every time I look up prices I find more coins that have increased substantially. I believe this is coming to US coins and this time it won't be just "pop tops" but almost any nice Gem and choice coins of better dates.
This has been an ongoing trend for many years and it's difficult to know where any specific coin is in the cycle. Obviously nice choice '77-S half dollars at $4 / is an aberration of one sort or another but a standing offer for months now of $3.50 for BU Ikes is the state of the market at this time. I believe we really will find that by the time dealers get stocked with moderns there won't be any left for collectors. The supply has become just that thin. Of course until demand becomes more widespread dealers are not going to bother to stock anything that won't sell.
I don't know about tips but people are definitely noticing their coins a lot more now days. I used to find a lot more well worn proofs and errors. It's getting very unusual to find any pre-1978 quarter in nice VF. I haven't seen an eagle reverse quarter in better than AU-50 condition for a year now.
Lustrous old quarters will soon be a thing of the past.
I remember it was said in 1965 that people would look for shiny edges on older clad someday. I wonder if there might already be a lot of people doing this. Anyone looking for nice quarters for their states or ATB albums might just pull out all the shiny edges and get a jolt when it's an eagle reverse coin.
Times flies when you're taking care of business, having fun, or neither.
Has anyone looked at the bid for a roll of 1981-S Type 2 cents? Not the SBA dollars that everyone knows about, but the value for a roll of Type 2 cents bids for $1500. I've worked with more than a few Lincoln cent collectors that went for the complete proof series, and this particular issue has been super scarce at best for the last few years.
Custom album maker and numismatic photographer, see my portfolio here: (http://www.donahuenumismatics.com/).
“Type 2 cents bids for $1500”
Hasn’t moved up $1 in price in the past year. Maybe years- I didn’t bother checking.
Wondercoin
Well, when you give the waitress a shiny mint set coin and she brings it here, everyone telling her it's worthless will not make a new collector.
Although something I don't seek out; I do like to buy older original rolls if I come across them at coin club meetings, or, from other collectors in the club that are selling. Mostly, Lincoln cents dated pre-'80's are fairly common. Sometimes a roll of late '50's Wheats. As the youngest at last meeting of 38 members present, I'm 47, most of these collectors are in their mid to late 60's on up. Many are in their 70's and a few in there 80's. Most of my mint sets have come from these get togethers through coin club auction, as I have well over a hundred. Dozens of the '68 and '69. Also, my Dad bought rolls from the mint starting with the release of state quarters in '99. So all the Sac's, and Prez bucks, and halves I have in collection as well with quarters to date, as Dad reminds me to stay current on these rolls when offered. Can't tell Dad no....lol! Would you?
So, my concern is when many of these collectors who are 20+ years older than I begin to pass, and many of their moderns that had been hoarded are offered, or, even me if I pass at a younger age; will there be enough YN's entering the market to keep demand up, and prices marginally increasing year to year assuming they also collect modern clad? I hope so. I primarily focus on varieties with moderns, and also the early clad era PL's. That is the niche that I enjoy collecting with clads.
Plus also, any of the moderns Dad wants me to buy as he had put together all the sets. I'm actually finding myself going back and picking up the rolls of "S" mint quarters because Dad didn't buy those, and the collection can't be complete without them!
Also, a few Dansco's I bought which have clad proofs. Many have toned, or hazed in a not so pleasant way. Some do look good but are few.
Do you buy these already attributed at retail (more or less) or are you looking to cherrypick them?
I do both. Whatever I may come across in person, or, online but prefer finding a nice cherrypick as most.
"if I pass at a younger age; will there be enough YN's entering the market to keep demand up"
It'll depend on whether they want to pay retail or cherrypick, I'd think.
Who knows? It could be there will be plenty attributed, and cheap. Might be a waste of time to cherrypick someday. We could be doing all the dirty work.
lol.
Wow. Modern mint sets are selling for more than face value. That’s encouraging.
If you value your time at more than zero, it's already a waste of time in most cases. I assume you do it for fun.
The way I think of it is that almost all the surviving mint sets are in the hands of the original purchaser or have been sold onto the market within the last couple years and are not yet "consumed" by collectors or wholesalers who destroy them to build denominational sets and rolls.
Obviously over the years large numbers of sets have been bought by existing collectors but these numbers pale in significance to sets that remain with the original; purchasers which pales in significance to the numbers destroyed. Few baby boomers ever seriously collected clad dimes and quarters making these coins even less likely to survive. The mint sets held by boomers may be a little nicer on average and a little less likely to be corroded but there are hardly going to be enough of them to make a substantial difference in the availability of nice chBU coins for mass markets.
Even if I'm wrong and a lot of the sets I believe have been destroyed are actually sitting in the hands of collectors the fact remains that even sets stored under good conditions are already bad or quickly going bad. Many can still be saved but the odds of the sets being cleaned before it's too late are low. We still need to deal with the fact that in the here and now there is very little available supply and demand has been increasing for decades. Of course if higher prices really are at hand many sets will be cleaned and become available but we still run up against the low incidence of nice choice coins in sets and the dearth of BU rolls of most moderns.
I interpret the evidence largely in terms of what can be seen and the most important part of supply that can be seen is what walks into coin shops. Very few older modern mint sets are walking into shops now days and many are still being destroyed because they are not easily sold and because so many are tarnished. This isn't going to stop until the demand actually materializes and it is my contention that even if it stops right this moment, there are far too few coins to support any kind of mass market. If every dealer simply cleaned all his sets and put the nice coins in inventory he'd have to go out and buy more coins to have sufficient inventory. Of course, demand doesn't just come into existence overnight so this will happen in fits and starts if it does. With a 5% attrition rate it almost better happen today.
The only thing that has made cherry picking so much fun the last few years is that it has been so cheap. If the sets sell for even a small premium it starts getting expensive fast.
There are a lot of changes that are going to result from premiums that go from 10% on a basket of mint sets to 80%. This is a huge increase seen from this perspective and the first people affected are those who supply the markets and submit coins to the services.
CK- To my point of (currently) never ending supply of cool moderns-
I bought a fresh lot of (150) 1996 Mint sets today (they are 25 years old now) just pulled from sealed US Mint boxes. That’s 1,650 more fresh modern coins I need my daughter Lauren to have a look at next week, especially the W dimes as PCGS has yet to grade a single coin with Full Bands over an MS68. The W dime is #88 in PCGS’ Top 100 Moderns and #21 from NGC’s first year Top 100 Modern set. I believe there are 459 coins in the (FB) pop top grade of MS68FB at PCGS. I have given Lauren the challenge of making the pop 1/0 MS68+FB! She starts with 150 fresh chances to do so. 😂
Wondercoin
Of course it's possible to still buy the older mint sets in bulk and unopened but most of the original buyers of something like 1969 mint sets have moved on and the sets dispersed. Even if you do find some boxes of such old sets the odds are the coins will be tarnished.
Even the highly desirable '96 sets are getting a little long in the tooth. The mintage was much lower so they started from a lower base. Many have been destroyed for the half dollars and W dime. Nearly a million survive and almost all are still fresh and pristine though many have been cherry picked for high grades. Unopened boxes are significantly more likely to hold that elusive '69 FB W dime.
More importantly than the total number of survivors is that much of the mintage still is held by the original buyer. This isn't true for the older moderns and is the reason so few walk into shops any longer. When they do come in they tend to be in small quantity, tattered, and tarnished. They also tend to have been cherry picked since so many of the older sets on the secondary market have had multiple owners.
Maybe you can corner the market on the remaining sets.
CK- The “breakup” / destruction of these mint sets has taken place primarily in the past 10-20 years. I wasn’t watching the Moon Landing in 1969 and turning my channel to the coin show thereafter. Nor, was I doing that any time in the 70s. But, I sure was watching those date run Mint set offerings that included the “highly sought after” state quarter mint sets in the early 21st Century. And, for every mint set run sold for a couple decades on these TV shows and elsewhere, one 1969 and one 1996 set was pulled away from their original owner to fill the order.
I believe your assessment of just how difficult it is to find 1969 mint sets vs. 1996 mint sets is a bit off the mark. First, we started with almost 350,000 more 1969 mint sets as compared to the lower mintage 1996 mint sets. Last year, by way of example, I believe the mint set mintage was a scant 213,000 sets! In 2018, I believe it was less than 254,000 as well. 350,000 extra sets is a lot of sets, that as you suggest with 1996 figures, takes about an entire generation to dispose of in one manner or another.
On top of that, NGC’s “21st” most desirable modern coin (per their first Top 100 rankings) is offered inside the 1996 mint set (PCGS’ “88th” Top Modern coin as well). An incredibly significant reason why the 1996 mint sets are routinely broken up as compared to the 1969 mint sets that are not broken up for any such additional need.
Hence, at a minimum, I would think the chances of finding quantity deals of 1996 mint sets is roughly equal to the chances of finding quantity deals of 1969 mint sets. But, just for the fun of it, starting next week, I will run buys for fresh groups of both dated sets and compare what I am getting in of each for the remainder of the year.
Wondercoin