I really want to believe in the clad coins. I started out trying hard to believe CK's thesis. But the longer this has gone on, the less I believe it.
I'm sure there has been significant Mint set attrition in recent years. I don't think it was that high "back in the day" as the Mint sets weren't selling for face value. But once they got down to face value, there wasn't much point in keeping partial sets of average coins hoping to get double face.
I'm sure a lot of the coins have "gone bad". I see a lot of cloudy coins in Mint sets, although more so in proof sets. But I wonder if the wholesale destruction of those sets has actually occurred. The only sets worth cutting up had gemmy coins in them. Some people cut them up to fill albums. But we started with a couple million sets. It wouldn't surprise me if a quarter or more of them are still extant. Now, those may not yield a lot of gemmy coins or "choice BU". But, if dipping works, it is a pretty large supply of UNC coins for the foreseeable future.
I mean, let's start with the thesis that these sets have been cut up to supply coins to the market. Given the popularity of the Kennedy as the king of these sets, you would have to have over a million Kennedy sets in albums for there to be over a million mint sets destroyed, wouldn't you?
I'm sure there has been significant Mint set attrition in recent years. I don't think it was that high "back in the day" as the Mint sets weren't selling for face value. But once they got down to face value, there wasn't much point in keeping partial sets of average coins hoping to get double face.
It doesn't work that way, or at the very least it didn't with mint sets.
What drove the destruction was always the demand for singles. It didn't matter what the sets sold for, if they were worth more dead than alive then they were murdered so it was often the most valuable sets with the highest attrition.
Whatever proof set had just dropped below the aggregate value of the coins used to just happen to be the date of the proofs you found in circulation. This was much less visible with mint sets since even experts can't always tell the difference between a mint set and circulation issue. But it used to be visible with mint sets too.
Now days it's easy to tell because all coins in circulation are worn out and the mint set coins are usually tarnished. I doubt there are even a million per year hitting circulation any longer and they get lost among the 50+ billion quarters in circulation. They usually have significant wear by the time I see one and I haven't seen one in a couple years. There are also lots of people pulling high grade clads out for their folders and albums now days reducing the chances of seeing it. Indeed, there is significant attenuation now on the grade distribution of clad quarters. You simply don't see nice VF's any longer the last few years except for later dates.
I'm sure there has been significant Mint set attrition in recent years. I don't think it was that high "back in the day" as the Mint sets weren't selling for face value. But once they got down to face value, there wasn't much point in keeping partial sets of average coins hoping to get double face.
It doesn't work that way, or at the very least it didn't with mint sets.
What drove the destruction was always the demand for singles. It didn't matter what the sets sold for, if they were worth more dead than alive then they were murdered so it was often the most valuable sets with the highest attrition.
Whatever proof set had just dropped below the aggregate value of the coins used to just happen to be the date of the proofs you found in circulation. This was much less visible with mint sets since even experts can't always tell the difference between a mint set and circulation issue. But it used to be visible with mint sets too.
Now days it's easy to tell because all coins in circulation are worn out and the mint set coins are usually tarnished. I doubt there are even a million per year hitting circulation any longer and they get lost among the 50+ billion quarters in circulation. They usually have significant wear by the time I see one and I haven't seen one in a couple years. There are also lots of people pulling high grade clads out for their folders and albums now days reducing the chances of seeing it. Indeed, there is significant attenuation now on the grade distribution of clad quarters. You simply don't see nice VF's any longer the last few years except for later dates.
Then there should be a over a million Kennedy sets out there, shouldn't there?
My point was that while they cut up sets for singles, it wasn't common practice until recently to dump the extras into the Coinstar because the coins were worth more than face value. When I started dealing about 20 years ago, the local dealers were paying 10% over face for cut up sets. It's only in recent years (10 to 15 years) that they were worth dumping into circulation.
I'm sure there has been significant Mint set attrition in recent years. I don't think it was that high "back in the day" as the Mint sets weren't selling for face value. But once they got down to face value, there wasn't much point in keeping partial sets of average coins hoping to get double face.
It doesn't work that way, or at the very least it didn't with mint sets.
What drove the destruction was always the demand for singles. It didn't matter what the sets sold for, if they were worth more dead than alive then they were murdered so it was often the most valuable sets with the highest attrition.
Whatever proof set had just dropped below the aggregate value of the coins used to just happen to be the date of the proofs you found in circulation. This was much less visible with mint sets since even experts can't always tell the difference between a mint set and circulation issue. But it used to be visible with mint sets too.
Now days it's easy to tell because all coins in circulation are worn out and the mint set coins are usually tarnished. I doubt there are even a million per year hitting circulation any longer and they get lost among the 50+ billion quarters in circulation. They usually have significant wear by the time I see one and I haven't seen one in a couple years. There are also lots of people pulling high grade clads out for their folders and albums now days reducing the chances of seeing it. Indeed, there is significant attenuation now on the grade distribution of clad quarters. You simply don't see nice VF's any longer the last few years except for later dates.
Then there should be a over a million Kennedy sets out there, shouldn't there?
The visible supply for sale at any point in time for the vast majority of coins comes down to price.
There isn't ever going to be a day when so many collectors will want this coinage yet most current owners won't sell it if the price goes up enough. That's not how markets work. Certainly not for coins with such a low collective aggregate preference.
There are many coins with an insufficient supply for everyone who wants it concurrently, even if in theory they can afford the current market price. If the demand goes up, the price goes up with it and practically all of it becomes available for sale at some price.
As I wrote in an earlier post, right now, practically any 20th century US coin is available for sale outside of the 1913 LHN, patterns, and a very low number of Indian Head eagles and Saints. The rest is only based upon the TPG label (almost exclusively condition census coins) and specialization.
cladking: "A couple of my favorite clad quarters are the '69 and '71. He got ion a "flood" of ZERO of them."
CK: First, I do not fully understand why your (2) favorite clad quarters has anything to do with your assertion that all the mint sets are disappearing because of the huge demand for Ike dollars and Kennedy 50C? I thought that the demand for Ike $1 and Kennedy 50C was at the heart of your claim? That said, my “flood” has come without me seeking 1971 or 1972 sets, because I never asked for them. And, they are so inexpensive that I will start adding those (2) dates immediately. So, thank you for pointing out that I wasn’t going after 1971 quarters. I might as well as I like them too (but in a different grade than you do), but I like 1971 50C equally as much in high grade.
Second, I am not sure why you would conclude that I got “zero” 1969 sets? I have been successful in getting in 69 sets since I added that date to my list a week or so ago from multiple sources. Below is a example of a buy of mine from yesterday (and part of the flood). The order included over (700) additional items of assorted proof sets (all pre-1991 and many Ike $1 related), proof silver Ike $1 (71-76) and Mint State silver Ike $1 (71-76).
FYI - I have not yet added any mint set dates (to my current buy list) dated after 1978 (except 1996) because I had a huge quantity on hand to still work through beginning in 1979. And, if I did add all the other dates from 1979-1998, the flood of coins would likely be so severe I would need to build an Ark!! For the moment, I am keeping the buys limited to sets ending in 1978, as well as just 1996 so I can hopefully slab with PCGS the first ever W dime in a FB grade above MS68 to include in my “Top 100 Modern” set.
Currently ChBU Morgans are in the $100 range. Circulated 1921s are over $30. [Just FYI]
At least part of the problem here is we're using different terminology. chBU Morgans were $35 the last I looked (it's been several weeks) but they are only $43 today. If you want to sell a roll of mixed date true Uncs that has been picked to death then the price is $43. "Wholesale" is the floor price that any coin is worth. An MS-65 '72-D quarter has a wholesale price of 40c but retailers price them as high as $7 or $8. As I already said there is no real wholesale price on '72-D quarters but if any one were willing to buy them then expect about $16 per roll for nice chBU.
Look, I don't claim to have a crystal ball. I also am not randomly throwing out numbers and statistics. Now we're back down to $2. OK. That number is so modest as to be both possible and not at all indicative of any major market change with regard to collecting.
If a market develops then very quickly nice gemmy quarters would be cherrypicked from the rolls exactly as I was doing with Morgans back in the 1970's. What is left from a cherry picked roll of '72-D's, I believe could trade as high as $80. This hardly means you could buy a Gem '83-P for $2 any more than wholesalers are picking out '93-S Morgans from their stock.
On a relative basis, when I chase a $20,000 coin at auction, my competition is deciding to spend roughly $210 (in relative terms of my money). Think about that and the benefits of doing your own work and producing “home made” coins for one’s registry sets. And, hence, the “beer budget” comment. On a night out in Singapore not too long ago, the beer for me and a friend cost over $210 and it wasn’t even the good stuff!
The days of raw moderns is ending chiefly because it will no longer be profitable for collectors to buy and sell mint sets and cut them up for profit. It will become far easier for dealers to do it and there will be more at least paying attention. Dealers will be more able to sell the constituent coins for full value and even at retail prices but collectors can't afford to buy take a $4 loss on very many $8 mint sets if he can't even sell the parts at wholesale because he can't acquire a sufficient number of sets and there are so many bad coins in them. Collectors will still be able to cherry pick mint sets but they'll probably never again be able to have the perverse markets defray most of the cost. It was very perverse that the coins in mint sets were worth far more than the mint sets themselves and this merely reflected how much the markets hated these coins.
It was (and always is) hard to make any money in coins because it is a set of skills few have. But it was impossible back when I started because even the most valuable Ikes were hardly worth the postage of shipping. Even the 1973 mint set came down to $5.35 at one time! I guess as markets changed and evolved it didn't even occur to me to follow in your footsteps. We all have habits.
Much nicer '50-E 10p's than this were being tossed in the trash when I started back in 1976. I wouldn't intentionally have paid a dime even for a nice VF. It wasn't even until the mid-80's that I realized how few of these I had been able to buy and began seeking them even in lower grade. Now you tell me that even the nicest Gem isn't "significant" when BU's were listing fort $1000. I disagree.
Not every single East German coin is rare and going to go to $1000 or even $20 but the point is there are lots of US moderns that are even scarcer than the '50-E relative to the potential demand. Many of these coins are well known to the hobby but others are not.
It's true collectors would not collect this coinage as they do now if it were common in BU but it isn't. The reason early US copper is widely collected even in very low grades is because US collectors assign it a very high relative preference, as opposed to US moderns which they do not.
Yes! Exactly!
Do you really believe that a new generation of collectors might not have a different "relative preference" to the preceding generations that hate clad?
Do you really believe a worn out and severely damaged aluminum coin is inherently worth more to US collectors than a true Gem '82-P quarter?!!!
CK: And, objection #2, facts not in evidence- I have literally been flooded with mint sets and proof sets this week. Roughly $15,000-$20,000 spent already in past few days (and that’s not easy to do buying sets with price tags as little as $6.10- my new high buy price for your favorite - the 1969 set). I’ve now started lowering my buy prices to slow down the flow a bit.
Ya shouldda seen in back in the old days. There was only slightly more interest in the sets but every dealer had in huge stacks of every date. They could be shipped for enough profit that dealers didn't mind buying them. The typical coin show would have 40 or 50 sets of each date and if you expressed interest the dealer would invite you to come to his shop. By the mid-'90's there was little reason to even take them to shows but you couldn't even find a date run moist of the time and the sets you saw were shop worn and picked over many times.
Of course sets have continued to flow onto the market for all these years and they aren't going to stop any time soon. But where there used to be 20 or 30 nice pristine 1969 mint sets for every 1000 the dealers purchased now there are only 3 or 4 and they're no longer pristine.
Maybe the rising prices are resulting in huge supplies of these sets hitting the market and a great many “wholesale” buyers getting flooded with them. And, I don’t consider myself a wholesale buyer - I am often paying substantially over “bid” for the top shelf sets! I want fresh sets and will pay up for them.
Yes, of course. Dramatically higher prices will necessarily result in at least a few more sets being shipped and I'm wagering that it won't be sufficient to the demand because the sets are gone and the ones left not of good enough quality. There won't be enough nice Ikes and half dollars so these prices would certainly go up and this will all happen while there is STILL no wholesale market for dimes and quarters. As this bulge in supply is being "consumed" there is still an underlying and unseen explosion in demand for dimes and quarters. All this new demand for dimes and quarters won't be satisfied by mint set coins as ALWAYS in the past because most of the available quality mint sets will be at the wholesalers being destroyed. This demand will turn to other supply including eBay and dealers. But, again, all the quarters on eBay are a drop in the bucket compared to total demand and all the dealer stock of modern singles is probably even less than eBay. Essentially this demand is too great to be satisfied from every source put together at current prices.
People are only imaging there are gigantic hoards of these coins because the mintages and number of mint sets were so enormous. People didn't save rolls and the mint sets are gone. The current price increases show that they are gone. Why would the supply/ demand become so lop-sided if there were still large numbers of sets available?
@MasonG said:
wondercoin: "I have literally been flooded with mint sets and proof sets this week."
cladking: "Even in aggregate this isn't a huge market but it was sufficient to destroy all the mint sets even before there was a wholesale market for dimes or quarters."
Both can't be true.
I wouldn't consider it even a "light drizzle". More like a little increase in humidity.
Keep in mind there was enough demand to cause the mint to make 2 million of each date. I never really understood where all this demand was coming from but the sets were cheap and if you got early delivery you could flip them for a quick profit. Whatever caused them to be made it certainly is reflective of potential demand. Now that there are so many coin collectors there's no reason to suppose that the demand couldn't actually approach 2 million for the coins in the sets.
These sets weren't destroyed because people loved them so much. They were destroyed because people hated them so much and there were so many of them. It has been a one-way market all along. The original buyers or their heirs take them into a coin shop and then the coin shop sells them to wholesalers who destroy them. Of course there exist middlemen and collectors often just cut the sets themselves and dealers mat do the same. The conventional wisdom has always been the coins are more common than grains of sand on the beach and this has the effect of preventing collecting AND destroying sets. The less the demand the more sets destroyed. As I said earlier dealers sold a few sets per year to customers and sent out huge shipments to wholesalers on a regular basis. The more sets that flowed onto the market the larger the shipments and more frequent they became. Every time I looked through a dealers sets he'd say I shouldda been there the week before because he just sent a lot to CA, AZ, TN, OH, NY, PA, FL, or NH. Of course, I already knew he shipped a bunch of sets recently. They always had.
The coins in these sets mostly just go into circulation. Collectors want a couple of coins and dealers want a Gem or variety so the set is destroyed and the coins spent. What no one ever wanted was a dime or quarter. It was hardly unusual to see a mint set with a single coin cut out that got mixed in with the intact sets. The coin was most often a dollar, second was a half, third was a cent, and fourth was a nickel. With the Ike sets this wasn't true but I believe it's because such a big coin missing caused the set to stand out so it didn't get mixed in with the other sets.
It doesn't seem to me that a market larger than the dregs of 2 million mint sets is such a surprising turn of events. I think it's just in time too since a lot of the quarters can still be saved with a little effort but without this effort the devastation will be nearly complete in less than a decade. This lack of pristine examples is likely part of what's driving the price increases.
@MasonG said:
wondercoin: "I have literally been flooded with mint sets and proof sets this week."
cladking: "Even in aggregate this isn't a huge market but it was sufficient to destroy all the mint sets even before there was a wholesale market for dimes or quarters."
Both can't be true.
I wouldn't consider it even a "light drizzle". More like a little increase in humidity.
@cladking said:
There won't be enough nice Ikes and half dollars so these prices would certainly go up and this will all happen while there is STILL no wholesale market for dimes and quarters. As this bulge in supply is being "consumed" there is still an underlying and unseen explosion in demand for dimes and quarters.
There's no market for dimes and quarters that are "being consumed", while there is an "explosion in demand"?
@cladking said:
All this new demand for dimes and quarters won't be satisfied by mint set coins as ALWAYS in the past because most of the available quality mint sets will be at the wholesalers being destroyed.
Wholesalers buy "quality mint sets" from dealers and destroy them despite "all this new demand"?
Yes! All the overhang (defined as surplus to aggregate demand) have been destroyed and most of the coins put into circulation.
"There's no market for dimes and quarters that are "being consumed", while there is an "explosion in demand"?
Yes! There is no wholesale market for modern dimes and quarters. There are people you can call to get a few Ike and half dollar rolls but nobody can supply you a roll set or a bag set of clad quarters. There is no demand so there is no market.
"Wholesalers buy "quality mint sets" from dealers and destroy them despite "all this new demand"?"
No! Wholesalers buy sets as they come (usually) and destroy them all. There is virtually no demand for intact sets even wholesale. Most demand for intact sets has been satisfied by local dealers and eBay, etc. But the small size of this market can not be overstated. Relative to mintage very few sets have been bought by individuals intending to keep them intact. This is not a popular collectible.
"There's no market for dimes and quarters that are "being consumed", while there is an "explosion in demand"?"
Yes. Dimes and quarters have mostly been consumed and spent. Even the very small number of mint sets available at this time virtually swamps the demand. But demand for clad quarters has been doubling every five years for 25 years almost and will swamp the supply when these sets disappear from the market to satisfy demand for Ikes and half dollars. This is just a prediction and any trend can be misinterpreted or change. I believe it's entirely within the realm of reason that it will continue at least for several more years.
CK: Can you be crystal clear in your assessment here? Exactly which dates of mint sets have quantities closing in on non-existent? You specifically mentioned 1969 and 1971. Any others? Or, is all of this predicting, forecasting and modeling that has spanned nearly 500 posts now involve only 2 specific years of mint sets? Please be crystal clear here - exactly what are the mint set dates essentially no longer available in any quantity? Thanks. Wondercoin.
Please visit my website at www.wondercoins.com and my ebay auctions under my user name www.wondercoin.com.
@Baley said:
"...nobody can supply you a roll set or a bag set of clad quarters."
Wow. Yup, that's rare! 😂
If you can't call up a wholesaler to get something, it's rare? And I'm supposed to understand there's no market for coins you can go and buy on eBay any day of the week?
Hypothetically you can rank the totality of a particular coin's mintage from best to worst. The value is generally assigned based on the absolute rarity of the coin and the individual rank of the specific coin. The worst of the 1913 nickels is still one of five.
With the clad coinage, even if all the mint sets were suddenly gone, there are still, at a minimum, hundreds of millions of coins for each issue. That the 10,000th best 1972-D quarter is a MS64, not a MS66 means nothing. With the massive mintage all that matters is the census rarity.
@wondercoin said:
CK: Can you be crystal clear in your assessment here? Exactly which dates of mint sets have quantities closing in on non-existent? You specifically mentioned 1969 and 1971. Any others? Or, is all of this predicting, forecasting and modeling that has spanned nearly 500 posts now involve only 2 specific years of mint sets? Please be crystal clear here - exactly what are the mint set dates essentially no longer available in any quantity? Thanks. Wondercoin.
The quarters for which I have the most concern as it applies mint set coins are the '68, '68-D, '69, '69-D, '70, '70-D, '71, '71-D, '77 to '80 P & D. Ironically the '76's are problematical as well but there are many thousands of BU rolls so there's no problem up through MS-65 since these appear in rolls. Above MS-65 they are a little more elusive but this won't affect most collectors.
The scope of the problem here is really rather extreme because even the mint set quarters that were saved were usually saved in the mint set cello and these are going bad too. For some reason the more porous the surface the more probable the coin is ruined by tarnish. For instance the nice lustrous '69-D quarters tend to be saved 75% of the time but the chicken scratched '69-(P) only about half the time. The '68-(P) is one of the worst though a few of these exist in rolls in chBU.
Keep in mind that this list of quarters correlates well with mintages of mint sets and later years had lower mintage and often a higher percentage of banged up and ugly coins. '93-D quarters aren't often tarnished but they are lower mintage and nice attractive coins appear in a lower percentage of sets.
Not many moderns (quarters) are scarce in below MS-63 but several are not in the kind of supply needed for a mass market. The '82-P is probably the toughest in such low grade but some of the early quarters aren't far behind. Many modern collectors actually prefer somewhat higher grade clads or what I call "gemmy". I se a few sets like this where the coins are highly lustrous and well made. Very few MS-63's are "gemmy" and only about half of MS-64's as well as most of the higher grades. I've seen coins graded as high as MS-66 that aren't very attractive. It is in this condition that some dates are rather elusive and always have been. The destruction of mint sets has eliminated much of the source of such attractive coins.
But, again, it's the chBU that is the sweet spot of most collectors' preferences and this is the grade that too few exist of many dates because of neglect and tarnish. It is chBU where demand is going to have the most effect on price in terms of market size. Of course gemmy coins and Gems are going to go even higher but the number of these coins is much lower for almost every date.
The '69 and '71 will probably be the stars in chBU with the '68, '70, and '71-D not too far behind. The '68-D and '69-D have some chance of being in low supply but the '68-D was a recognized "scarcity" in 1968 and some were set aside. The '69-D cleans up well.
@nags said:
Hypothetically you can rank the totality of a particular coin's mintage from best to worst. The value is generally assigned based on the absolute rarity of the coin and the individual rank of the specific coin. The worst of the 1913 nickels is still one of five.
With the clad coinage, even if all the mint sets were suddenly gone, there are still, at a minimum, hundreds of millions of coins for each issue.
Well...
There are tens of millions of each issue other than varieties but people don't collect many moderns from circulation so this isn't part of the supply. Of course they could collect them and I personally really enjoy doing it just this way. If the BU's and Gems got to be high enough priced I'm sure some people would choose to collect something else and some people would collect quarters from circulation. My opinion is that it would take substantially higher prices before people op[t to collect from circulation. I do see lots of chBU clad sets with sliders for the '82 and '83 issues but I doubt the collector noticed it. Uncs are expensive and hard to get so a lot of collectors end up with AU's.
If no one collects them, why are people cutting up sets and selling coins?
They get cut up for the halfs and dollars.
Not having a roll of '72-D's doesn't matter until you have 40 potential retail customers.
Few of these coins are rare. A '72-D type "h" reverse in Unc is rare. What they are is insufficient in quantity to supply any type of mass market. There are plenty of '76-D quarters in BU but there are not plenty of some other dates.
@MasonG said: "there are no retail customers because nobody collects them."
" it's the chBU that is the sweet spot of most collectors' preferences"
How can chBU be the collectors' preference if nobody is collecting them?
Words take their meaning from context.
Compared to a mass market like Lincoln cents or morgan dollars there is no market for moderns. All coins tend to be preferred in chBU by the majority of collectors. Any sentence can be parsed in such a way as to be nonsense.
Much nicer '50-E 10p's than this were being tossed in the trash when I started back in 1976. I wouldn't intentionally have paid a dime even for a nice VF. It wasn't even until the mid-80's that I realized how few of these I had been able to buy and began seeking them even in lower grade. Now you tell me that even the nicest Gem isn't "significant" when BU's were listing fort $1000. I disagree.
Not sure what you are getting at here as you seem to be referring to my replies from prior threads.
The reason I disputed your prices on these East German coins here is because you have never demonstrated that you have any idea what these coins (world "moderns") are actually worth. It's irrelevant what the list price is, whether $1000 or otherwise. Listing at $1000, $1600 or $2500 doesn't mean this coin ever sold for anything more than a minimal fraction of these prices, unless you have evidence that it actually did.
Where is this evidence and what does this have to do with clad quarters?
It's true collectors would not collect this coinage as they do now if it were common in BU but it isn't. The reason early US copper is widely collected even in very low grades is because US collectors assign it a very high relative preference, as opposed to US moderns which they do not.
Yes! Exactly!
Do you really believe that a new generation of collectors might not have a different "relative preference" to the preceding generations that hate clad?
There is no evidence - absolutely none - that demographic turnover correlates to the type of change you have implied.
Using your logic, collectors "hate" clad more now than they did in the late 60's and 70's which contradicts your claim. Baby boomers and my generation bought millions of proof and mint sets each and every year for decades. Sales of both have collapsed more recently.
When has any buyer (not just collector) ever paid a paid a premium above FV for coins they did not want?
If I remember correctly there was and probably still are lots of people very upset when in 65 they stopped using silver. Now that was way high on the list as to why views changed Do you have 40 customers and need some coins. I’ll look around
@cladking said:
Again, an MS-62 and an MS-65 '72-D each cost 40c at this time. How high does the MS-65 have to go before a nice F from circulation is more appealing?
Depends on the collector. Everybody has a budget.
edited to add... A typical way for people to start collecting is by picking coins out of change. A lot of them never proceed beyond this point, and wouldn't spend even 40 cents for a BU example.
@cladking said:
Again, an MS-62 and an MS-65 '72-D each cost 40c at this time. How high does the MS-65 have to go before a nice F from circulation is more appealing?
Depends on the collector. Everybody has a budget.
edited to add... A typical way for people to start collecting is by picking coins out of change. A lot of them never proceed beyond this point, and wouldn't spend even 40 cents for a BU example.
This is often true. Collectors are hoarders by nature. I know older collectors with more advanced collections that still have their whitman blue books with coins they pulled from circulation, sometimes in their childhood. This is partly why I'm fairly certain there are thousands of collectible clad coins sitting in collections. Of course, if the price doesn't increase soon, I'm going to dump them all in a Coinstar.
@jmlanzaf said:
I know older collectors with more advanced collections that still have their whitman blue books with coins they pulled from circulation, sometimes in their childhood. This is partly why I'm fairly certain there are thousands of collectible clad coins sitting in collections.
I don't think they count, as they're not currently available to wholesalers.
@jmlanzaf said:
I know older collectors with more advanced collections that still have their whitman blue books with coins they pulled from circulation, sometimes in their childhood. This is partly why I'm fairly certain there are thousands of collectible clad coins sitting in collections.
I don't think they count, as they're not currently available to wholesalers.
I'm not sure what counts anymore.
I'm not sure what coins are good. What years are bad? What the future price point is supposed to be? How we know the attrition rate so accurately?
At this point, all I've learned is: 1969, ChBu, rolls, wholesalers,1%.
I'm just not sure how the mad lib fits together.
I'm a little concerned that poor @wondercoin is going to be bankrupted trying to determine that over a million sets still exist!
I'm a little concerned that poor @wondercoin is going to be bankrupted trying to determine that over a million sets still exist!
Way over a million sets still exist. Way over ten million still exist.
But they are not evenly distributed and many of the coins are ugly and/ or tarnished. As a type coin eagle reverse clad quarters might no be scarce in 10,000 years. Many of the dates are scarce in nice condition.
“The quarters for which I have the most concern as it applies mint set coins are the '68, '68-D, '69, '69-D, '70, '70-D, '71, '71-D, '77 to '80 P & D. Ironically the '76's are problematical as well but there are many thousands of BU rolls so there's no problem up through MS-65 since these appear in rolls. Above MS-65 they are a little more elusive but this won't affect most collectors.”
CK: Ok- so we have (finally) now established that this situation involving “the days of raw moderns are over” relates specifically in your opinion to the (8) mint set years in particular dated: 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1977, 1978, 1979 and 1980. Let me know if I got that incorrect.
My general comments- not really sure why 1972 and 1973 are left out. These P mint quarters are exceedingly difficult to locate in gem quality even at the moment. The 1974 quarters are decent coins to “tuck away” as well. And, anyone know just how rare the 1974-P dime is in FB in ANY grade? The single coin showing as graded after 35 years of submitting at PCGS does not thrill me with those bands.
Ditto for 1975 and 1976- these quarters are getting tougher and tougher to locate in gem quality. I never dreamed that the 1976-P quarter I found and submitted years ago for my registry set would still remain a pop 1/0 today in just the grade of MS67+. Even very tough dates like 1979 and 1982 already have an MS68 graded. And, anyone ever try to find a 1976-P dime with FB? After (35) years of submitting, a total of 4 coins have been awarded the designation and none higher than MS66 quality! Also, not sure why the list is cut off at 1980 and not extended to 1981? The 1981 quarters are roughly just as tough in gem to locate as other dates on CK’s list from my experience.
Summary- I see no rhyme or reason why the mint set dates are limited to just the (8) dates set out by CK. I think a reasonable argument can be made that the entire 1968-1981 date run is pretty much in the same league, especially as it relates to quarters and dimes, and even more so as it relates to 50C and $1 coins. If one agrees that the entire run of 1968-1981 mint sets are in the “same boat” then it becomes clear that the days of raw moderns are not quite yet over as these sets are available at the moment with a little effort. And by “available” I mean one is able to purchase 500 - 1,000 total sets fairly easily, which is all that the typical collector would ever want just sitting around for years or decades as part of his or her collection.
As Mark Twain said: “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated,”. As is the same with the death of raw moderns at the moment it appears.
As always, just my 2 cents.
Wondercoin
Please visit my website at www.wondercoins.com and my ebay auctions under my user name www.wondercoin.com.
CK: Ok- so we have (finally) now established that this situation involving “the days of raw moderns are over” relates specifically in your opinion to the (8) mint set years in particular dated: 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1977, 1978, 1979 and 1980. Let me know if I got that incorrect.
My general comments- not really sure why 1972 and 1973 are left out. These P mint quarters are exceedingly difficult to locate in gem quality even at the moment. The 1974 quarters are decent coins to “tuck away” as well. And, anyone know just how rare the 1974-P dime is in FB in ANY grade? The single coin showing as graded after 35 years of submitting at PCGS does not thrill me with those bands.
Ditto for 1975 and 1976- these quarters are getting tougher and tougher to locate in gem quality. I never dreamed that the 1976-P quarter I found and submitted years ago for my registry set would still remain a pop 1/0 today in just the grade of MS67+. Even very tough dates like 1979 and 1982 already have an MS68 graded. And, anyone ever try to find a 1976-P dime with FB? After (35) years of submitting, a total of 4 coins have been awarded the designation and none higher than MS66 quality! Also, not sure why the list is cut off at 1980 and not extended to 1981? The 1981 quarters are roughly just as tough in gem to locate as other dates on CK’s list from my experience.
Summary- I see no rhyme or reason why the mint set dates are limited to just the (8) dates set out by CK. I think a reasonable argument can be made that the entire 1968-1981 date run is pretty much in the same league, especially as it relates to quarters and dimes, and even more so as it relates to 50C and $1 coins. If one agrees that the entire run of 1968-1981 mint sets are in the “same boat” then it becomes clear that the days of raw moderns are not quite yet over as these sets are available at the moment with a little effort. And by “available” I mean one is able to purchase 500 - 1,000 total sets fairly easily, which is all that the typical collector would ever want just sitting around for years or decades as part of his or her collection.
As Mark Twain said: “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated,”. As is the same with the death of raw moderns at the moment it appears.
A chBU is a clad quarter that is fully lustrous and reasonably well made. It's a clad quarter that looks pretty good from a few feet away or in low light conditions. It is the grade most in demand in terms of number of collectors. It includes coins that grade all the way from MS-60 to a few bad MS-65's. It's mostly MS-62 to MS-64. This grade represents as most of the production of some dates but others can be worse or even better. Only a little more than half of '76 type I Ikes went into mint sets as chBU or better. Many were just too ugly and went all the way down to "MS-45".
To many collectors it is irrelevant how many superb Gems there are of any date. They have no interest in obtaining a coin above their means or ability to find one in the wild. Often these collections are just for fun and they don't care about higher grades. A few could even be putting collections together of the ugliest uncs they can find. But the issue here is availability of ch BU vis a vis the available supply and it is simply a different list of "rarities" in this lower grade. This list is determined more by the number of coins saved less the attrition and most of these got on the list because of attrition since they all appear in mint sets with mintages in the millions. This attrition is two-fold; on the one hand these sets were heavily destroyed by a market that neglected them and on the other these represent the least stable packaging made by the mint. The coins in the '72-'74 mint sets simply are not tarnished as often making the '72-D much more common than coins like the '80-D that started with a far higher number.
It's a topsy turvy world in the lower grades where quarters from the mid-'80's are much more common despite the much lower initial numbers because because the attrition is lower AND mint set packaging is much more stable.
I love Gems as a collecting goal and believe many collectors will attempt such sets. I don't mean pop tops, just Gem. These have a totally different ranking of rarity than chGem or chBU. In Gem the rarities really stand out and due to the key date's tiny numbers could really perform above anyone's expectations.
@cladking said:
Compared to a mass market like Lincoln cents or morgan dollars there is no market for moderns.
eBay search for 1965-1998 coinage.
Lincoln cents: 16,855 results for lincoln
Washington quarters: 12,221 results for washington
ROFL
The first 50 hit are ALL silver coins except a couple of proofs.
I'm not talking about silver or proof. A selection of low grade 1940's era quarters are of no use to a collector who seeks a nice BU (non-SMS) 1966 quarter. 12,000 hits are irrelevant.
Even when I confine the search to relevant hits I see only a couple thousand coins if that. All together this represents a few days supply for a mass market. Dealers, retailers, and wholesalers don't have significant stocks of these either.
Of course people aren't selling all their 40c coins on eBay. But you are just assuming there are mountains of these coins because this is what people have always done. There were just a bunch of rolling hills and they are now eroded away.
The first 50 hit are ALL silver coins except a couple of proofs.
It's a rough estimate. I'm not spending half an hour creating search parameters that you're just going to disagree with anyway. Of course there's going to be some silver and proofs in there, but that's not good enough is it? You have to exaggerate on top of that. I just searched again and stopped counting when I got to twenty of the first fifty items being clad non-proofs.
BTW- there's proofs in the Lincolns too.
@cladking said:
Even when I confine the search to relevant hits I see only a couple thousand coins if that.
I don't believe you. Post your search terms- I posted mine.
@cladking said:
All together this represents a few days supply for a mass market. Dealers, retailers, and wholesalers don't have significant stocks of these either.
@cladking said:
Compared to a mass market like Lincoln cents or morgan dollars there is no market for moderns.
eBay search for 1965-1998 coinage.
Lincoln cents: 16,855 results for lincoln
Washington quarters: 12,221 results for washington
ROFL
The first 50 hit are ALL silver coins except a couple of proofs.
I'm not talking about silver or proof. A selection of low grade 1940's era quarters are of no use to a collector who seeks a nice BU (non-SMS) 1966 quarter. 12,000 hits are irrelevant.
Even when I confine the search to relevant hits I see only a couple thousand coins if that. All together this represents a few days supply for a mass market. Dealers, retailers, and wholesalers don't have significant stocks of these either.
Of course people aren't selling all their 40c coins on eBay. But you are just assuming there are mountains of these coins because this is what people have always done. There were just a bunch of rolling hills and they are now eroded away.
To be fair, you have embedded in your own argument the reason why you may be wrong. You say that there is no market, "people aren't selling all their 40 cent coins on eBay". That is also why there are no wholesale mountains of coins. But that also means YOUR visibility on these coins is NOT good. It is very hard to know what is in everyone's change jar and whitman albums. IF IF IF they ever caught on, which you sometimes are suggesting, you would suddenly have these coins flowing through the market and the invisible would become visible.
By the way, for fun, I searched for clad sets of quarters on eBay. Spent 30 seconds on it, but there are people selling multiple sets "from rolls". I wouldn't be too sure there aren't any out there.
It's a rough estimate. I'm not spending half an hour creating search parameters that you're just going to disagree with anyway. Of course there's going to be some silver and proofs in there, but that's not good enough is it? You have to exaggerate on top of that. I just searched again and stopped counting when I got to twenty of the first fifty items being clad non-proofs.
I duplicated EXACTLY what you said you did and got almost EXACTLY the same results; lots and lots of silver quarters and two proofs.
@jmlanzaf said:
By the way, for fun, I searched for clad sets of quarters on eBay. Spent 30 seconds on it, but there are people selling multiple sets "from rolls". I wouldn't be too sure there aren't any out there.
But there are only three sets left- we're about to run out!!!
@cladking said:
I duplicated EXACTLY what you said you did and got almost EXACTLY the same results; lots and lots of silver quarters and two proofs.
You said:
"The first 50 hit are ALL silver coins except a couple of proofs."
Searched again, 26 of the first 50 listings are non-proof clads.
USA coin lot 1965 - 1998 P&D COMPLETE WASHINGTON QUARTER 63 COIN SET CIRC. to BU
1972 D BU WASHINGTON QUARTER Rainbow Toned US Coin
1976 P&D; Bicentennial Washington Quarter Clad Roll Lot of 40 Coins- VF to AU.
1965 Liberty Washington Quarter U.S. Coin
$10 Roll of Washington Quarters 1965-1998 Mixed (40 Quarters)
COMPLETE GEORGE WASHINGTON US OLD STYLE QUARTER SET 1965-1998 P & D 63 COINS
1982 P Washington Quarter BU US Coin
NEW LISTING1995 P&D Washington Quarters
1965 Clad Bicentennial Washington Quarter (MS65) NGC
1982 P D S Washington Quarter Year Set Proof & BU US 3 Coin Lot
Complete 63 Coin Set 1965-1998 P&D Washington Quarters NICE
NEW LISTING1969 D BU WASHINGTON QUARTER Rainbow Toned US Coin
NEW LISTING1969 D BU WASHINGTON QUARTER Rainbow Toned US Coin
1970 BU Washington Quarter 40-Coin Roll
1980-P WASHINGTON QUARTER 25C PCGS ( MS 66 )
1983 D Washington Quarter Gem BU Coin from Original Bank Roll
1969 D Washington Quarter Uncirculated - clad
1965-P 25c WASHINGTON QUARTER DOLLAR US COIN , TONED, No Reserve $ !
NEW LISTING1968 BU WASHINGTON QUARTER Rainbow Toned US Coin
Roll of 40 Bicentennial 1976 Quarters Circulated
NEW LISTING1969 D BU WASHINGTON QUARTER Rainbow Toned US Coin
1990-1998 P D Washington Quarters 18 coin Set GEM BU Uncirculated in Mint Cello
Uncirculated Toned 1967 Philadelphia Mint Clad Washington Quarter
1965-D Washington Quarter. Error
NEW LISTING1982 D WASHINGTON QUARTER - PCGS MS-62
NEW LISTING1982 D WASHINGTON QUARTER - PCGS MS-62
Comments
I really want to believe in the clad coins. I started out trying hard to believe CK's thesis. But the longer this has gone on, the less I believe it.
I'm sure there has been significant Mint set attrition in recent years. I don't think it was that high "back in the day" as the Mint sets weren't selling for face value. But once they got down to face value, there wasn't much point in keeping partial sets of average coins hoping to get double face.
I'm sure a lot of the coins have "gone bad". I see a lot of cloudy coins in Mint sets, although more so in proof sets. But I wonder if the wholesale destruction of those sets has actually occurred. The only sets worth cutting up had gemmy coins in them. Some people cut them up to fill albums. But we started with a couple million sets. It wouldn't surprise me if a quarter or more of them are still extant. Now, those may not yield a lot of gemmy coins or "choice BU". But, if dipping works, it is a pretty large supply of UNC coins for the foreseeable future.
I mean, let's start with the thesis that these sets have been cut up to supply coins to the market. Given the popularity of the Kennedy as the king of these sets, you would have to have over a million Kennedy sets in albums for there to be over a million mint sets destroyed, wouldn't you?
It doesn't work that way, or at the very least it didn't with mint sets.
What drove the destruction was always the demand for singles. It didn't matter what the sets sold for, if they were worth more dead than alive then they were murdered so it was often the most valuable sets with the highest attrition.
Whatever proof set had just dropped below the aggregate value of the coins used to just happen to be the date of the proofs you found in circulation. This was much less visible with mint sets since even experts can't always tell the difference between a mint set and circulation issue. But it used to be visible with mint sets too.
Now days it's easy to tell because all coins in circulation are worn out and the mint set coins are usually tarnished. I doubt there are even a million per year hitting circulation any longer and they get lost among the 50+ billion quarters in circulation. They usually have significant wear by the time I see one and I haven't seen one in a couple years. There are also lots of people pulling high grade clads out for their folders and albums now days reducing the chances of seeing it. Indeed, there is significant attenuation now on the grade distribution of clad quarters. You simply don't see nice VF's any longer the last few years except for later dates.
Then there should be a over a million Kennedy sets out there, shouldn't there?
My point was that while they cut up sets for singles, it wasn't common practice until recently to dump the extras into the Coinstar because the coins were worth more than face value. When I started dealing about 20 years ago, the local dealers were paying 10% over face for cut up sets. It's only in recent years (10 to 15 years) that they were worth dumping into circulation.
The visible supply for sale at any point in time for the vast majority of coins comes down to price.
There isn't ever going to be a day when so many collectors will want this coinage yet most current owners won't sell it if the price goes up enough. That's not how markets work. Certainly not for coins with such a low collective aggregate preference.
There are many coins with an insufficient supply for everyone who wants it concurrently, even if in theory they can afford the current market price. If the demand goes up, the price goes up with it and practically all of it becomes available for sale at some price.
As I wrote in an earlier post, right now, practically any 20th century US coin is available for sale outside of the 1913 LHN, patterns, and a very low number of Indian Head eagles and Saints. The rest is only based upon the TPG label (almost exclusively condition census coins) and specialization.
It's a non-problem.
cladking: "A couple of my favorite clad quarters are the '69 and '71. He got ion a "flood" of ZERO of them."
CK: First, I do not fully understand why your (2) favorite clad quarters has anything to do with your assertion that all the mint sets are disappearing because of the huge demand for Ike dollars and Kennedy 50C? I thought that the demand for Ike $1 and Kennedy 50C was at the heart of your claim? That said, my “flood” has come without me seeking 1971 or 1972 sets, because I never asked for them. And, they are so inexpensive that I will start adding those (2) dates immediately. So, thank you for pointing out that I wasn’t going after 1971 quarters. I might as well as I like them too (but in a different grade than you do), but I like 1971 50C equally as much in high grade.
Second, I am not sure why you would conclude that I got “zero” 1969 sets? I have been successful in getting in 69 sets since I added that date to my list a week or so ago from multiple sources. Below is a example of a buy of mine from yesterday (and part of the flood). The order included over (700) additional items of assorted proof sets (all pre-1991 and many Ike $1 related), proof silver Ike $1 (71-76) and Mint State silver Ike $1 (71-76).
FYI - I have not yet added any mint set dates (to my current buy list) dated after 1978 (except 1996) because I had a huge quantity on hand to still work through beginning in 1979. And, if I did add all the other dates from 1979-1998, the flood of coins would likely be so severe I would need to build an Ark!! For the moment, I am keeping the buys limited to sets ending in 1978, as well as just 1996 so I can hopefully slab with PCGS the first ever W dime in a FB grade above MS68 to include in my “Top 100 Modern” set.
Carry on with the debate!
“I have-
MINT SETS
1969- 8
1970- 6
1974- 1
1975- 1
1976- 5
1976 3pc- 9
1977- 3
1978- 3
1996- 72”
Wondercoin
At least part of the problem here is we're using different terminology. chBU Morgans were $35 the last I looked (it's been several weeks) but they are only $43 today. If you want to sell a roll of mixed date true Uncs that has been picked to death then the price is $43. "Wholesale" is the floor price that any coin is worth. An MS-65 '72-D quarter has a wholesale price of 40c but retailers price them as high as $7 or $8. As I already said there is no real wholesale price on '72-D quarters but if any one were willing to buy them then expect about $16 per roll for nice chBU.
If a market develops then very quickly nice gemmy quarters would be cherrypicked from the rolls exactly as I was doing with Morgans back in the 1970's. What is left from a cherry picked roll of '72-D's, I believe could trade as high as $80. This hardly means you could buy a Gem '83-P for $2 any more than wholesalers are picking out '93-S Morgans from their stock.
On a relative basis, when I chase a $20,000 coin at auction, my competition is deciding to spend roughly $210 (in relative terms of my money). Think about that and the benefits of doing your own work and producing “home made” coins for one’s registry sets. And, hence, the “beer budget” comment. On a night out in Singapore not too long ago, the beer for me and a friend cost over $210 and it wasn’t even the good stuff!
The days of raw moderns is ending chiefly because it will no longer be profitable for collectors to buy and sell mint sets and cut them up for profit. It will become far easier for dealers to do it and there will be more at least paying attention. Dealers will be more able to sell the constituent coins for full value and even at retail prices but collectors can't afford to buy take a $4 loss on very many $8 mint sets if he can't even sell the parts at wholesale because he can't acquire a sufficient number of sets and there are so many bad coins in them. Collectors will still be able to cherry pick mint sets but they'll probably never again be able to have the perverse markets defray most of the cost. It was very perverse that the coins in mint sets were worth far more than the mint sets themselves and this merely reflected how much the markets hated these coins.
It was (and always is) hard to make any money in coins because it is a set of skills few have. But it was impossible back when I started because even the most valuable Ikes were hardly worth the postage of shipping. Even the 1973 mint set came down to $5.35 at one time! I guess as markets changed and evolved it didn't even occur to me to follow in your footsteps. We all have habits.
Much nicer '50-E 10p's than this were being tossed in the trash when I started back in 1976. I wouldn't intentionally have paid a dime even for a nice VF. It wasn't even until the mid-80's that I realized how few of these I had been able to buy and began seeking them even in lower grade. Now you tell me that even the nicest Gem isn't "significant" when BU's were listing fort $1000. I disagree.
Not every single East German coin is rare and going to go to $1000 or even $20 but the point is there are lots of US moderns that are even scarcer than the '50-E relative to the potential demand. Many of these coins are well known to the hobby but others are not.
Yes! Exactly!
Do you really believe that a new generation of collectors might not have a different "relative preference" to the preceding generations that hate clad?
Do you really believe a worn out and severely damaged aluminum coin is inherently worth more to US collectors than a true Gem '82-P quarter?!!!
Ya shouldda seen in back in the old days. There was only slightly more interest in the sets but every dealer had in huge stacks of every date. They could be shipped for enough profit that dealers didn't mind buying them. The typical coin show would have 40 or 50 sets of each date and if you expressed interest the dealer would invite you to come to his shop. By the mid-'90's there was little reason to even take them to shows but you couldn't even find a date run moist of the time and the sets you saw were shop worn and picked over many times.
Of course sets have continued to flow onto the market for all these years and they aren't going to stop any time soon. But where there used to be 20 or 30 nice pristine 1969 mint sets for every 1000 the dealers purchased now there are only 3 or 4 and they're no longer pristine.
Yes, of course. Dramatically higher prices will necessarily result in at least a few more sets being shipped and I'm wagering that it won't be sufficient to the demand because the sets are gone and the ones left not of good enough quality. There won't be enough nice Ikes and half dollars so these prices would certainly go up and this will all happen while there is STILL no wholesale market for dimes and quarters. As this bulge in supply is being "consumed" there is still an underlying and unseen explosion in demand for dimes and quarters. All this new demand for dimes and quarters won't be satisfied by mint set coins as ALWAYS in the past because most of the available quality mint sets will be at the wholesalers being destroyed. This demand will turn to other supply including eBay and dealers. But, again, all the quarters on eBay are a drop in the bucket compared to total demand and all the dealer stock of modern singles is probably even less than eBay. Essentially this demand is too great to be satisfied from every source put together at current prices.
People are only imaging there are gigantic hoards of these coins because the mintages and number of mint sets were so enormous. People didn't save rolls and the mint sets are gone. The current price increases show that they are gone. Why would the supply/ demand become so lop-sided if there were still large numbers of sets available?
I wouldn't consider it even a "light drizzle". More like a little increase in humidity.
Keep in mind there was enough demand to cause the mint to make 2 million of each date. I never really understood where all this demand was coming from but the sets were cheap and if you got early delivery you could flip them for a quick profit. Whatever caused them to be made it certainly is reflective of potential demand. Now that there are so many coin collectors there's no reason to suppose that the demand couldn't actually approach 2 million for the coins in the sets.
These sets weren't destroyed because people loved them so much. They were destroyed because people hated them so much and there were so many of them. It has been a one-way market all along. The original buyers or their heirs take them into a coin shop and then the coin shop sells them to wholesalers who destroy them. Of course there exist middlemen and collectors often just cut the sets themselves and dealers mat do the same. The conventional wisdom has always been the coins are more common than grains of sand on the beach and this has the effect of preventing collecting AND destroying sets. The less the demand the more sets destroyed. As I said earlier dealers sold a few sets per year to customers and sent out huge shipments to wholesalers on a regular basis. The more sets that flowed onto the market the larger the shipments and more frequent they became. Every time I looked through a dealers sets he'd say I shouldda been there the week before because he just sent a lot to CA, AZ, TN, OH, NY, PA, FL, or NH. Of course, I already knew he shipped a bunch of sets recently. They always had.
The coins in these sets mostly just go into circulation. Collectors want a couple of coins and dealers want a Gem or variety so the set is destroyed and the coins spent. What no one ever wanted was a dime or quarter. It was hardly unusual to see a mint set with a single coin cut out that got mixed in with the intact sets. The coin was most often a dollar, second was a half, third was a cent, and fourth was a nickel. With the Ike sets this wasn't true but I believe it's because such a big coin missing caused the set to stand out so it didn't get mixed in with the other sets.
It doesn't seem to me that a market larger than the dregs of 2 million mint sets is such a surprising turn of events. I think it's just in time too since a lot of the quarters can still be saved with a little effort but without this effort the devastation will be nearly complete in less than a decade. This lack of pristine examples is likely part of what's driving the price increases.
deleted
You said "all the mint sets" were destroyed.
Keep moving those goalposts.
There's no market for dimes and quarters that are "being consumed", while there is an "explosion in demand"?
Wholesalers buy "quality mint sets" from dealers and destroy them despite "all this new demand"?
"You said "all the mint sets" were destroyed".
Yes! All the overhang (defined as surplus to aggregate demand) have been destroyed and most of the coins put into circulation.
"There's no market for dimes and quarters that are "being consumed", while there is an "explosion in demand"?
Yes! There is no wholesale market for modern dimes and quarters. There are people you can call to get a few Ike and half dollar rolls but nobody can supply you a roll set or a bag set of clad quarters. There is no demand so there is no market.
"Wholesalers buy "quality mint sets" from dealers and destroy them despite "all this new demand"?"
No! Wholesalers buy sets as they come (usually) and destroy them all. There is virtually no demand for intact sets even wholesale. Most demand for intact sets has been satisfied by local dealers and eBay, etc. But the small size of this market can not be overstated. Relative to mintage very few sets have been bought by individuals intending to keep them intact. This is not a popular collectible.
"There's no market for dimes and quarters that are "being consumed", while there is an "explosion in demand"?"
Yes. Dimes and quarters have mostly been consumed and spent. Even the very small number of mint sets available at this time virtually swamps the demand. But demand for clad quarters has been doubling every five years for 25 years almost and will swamp the supply when these sets disappear from the market to satisfy demand for Ikes and half dollars. This is just a prediction and any trend can be misinterpreted or change. I believe it's entirely within the realm of reason that it will continue at least for several more years.
CK: Can you be crystal clear in your assessment here? Exactly which dates of mint sets have quantities closing in on non-existent? You specifically mentioned 1969 and 1971. Any others? Or, is all of this predicting, forecasting and modeling that has spanned nearly 500 posts now involve only 2 specific years of mint sets? Please be crystal clear here - exactly what are the mint set dates essentially no longer available in any quantity? Thanks. Wondercoin.
"...nobody can supply you a roll set or a bag set of clad quarters."
Wow. Yup, that's rare! 😂
Liberty: Parent of Science & Industry
If you can't call up a wholesaler to get something, it's rare? And I'm supposed to understand there's no market for coins you can go and buy on eBay any day of the week?
Interesting.
Hypothetically you can rank the totality of a particular coin's mintage from best to worst. The value is generally assigned based on the absolute rarity of the coin and the individual rank of the specific coin. The worst of the 1913 nickels is still one of five.
With the clad coinage, even if all the mint sets were suddenly gone, there are still, at a minimum, hundreds of millions of coins for each issue. That the 10,000th best 1972-D quarter is a MS64, not a MS66 means nothing. With the massive mintage all that matters is the census rarity.
The quarters for which I have the most concern as it applies mint set coins are the '68, '68-D, '69, '69-D, '70, '70-D, '71, '71-D, '77 to '80 P & D. Ironically the '76's are problematical as well but there are many thousands of BU rolls so there's no problem up through MS-65 since these appear in rolls. Above MS-65 they are a little more elusive but this won't affect most collectors.
The scope of the problem here is really rather extreme because even the mint set quarters that were saved were usually saved in the mint set cello and these are going bad too. For some reason the more porous the surface the more probable the coin is ruined by tarnish. For instance the nice lustrous '69-D quarters tend to be saved 75% of the time but the chicken scratched '69-(P) only about half the time. The '68-(P) is one of the worst though a few of these exist in rolls in chBU.
Keep in mind that this list of quarters correlates well with mintages of mint sets and later years had lower mintage and often a higher percentage of banged up and ugly coins. '93-D quarters aren't often tarnished but they are lower mintage and nice attractive coins appear in a lower percentage of sets.
Not many moderns (quarters) are scarce in below MS-63 but several are not in the kind of supply needed for a mass market. The '82-P is probably the toughest in such low grade but some of the early quarters aren't far behind. Many modern collectors actually prefer somewhat higher grade clads or what I call "gemmy". I se a few sets like this where the coins are highly lustrous and well made. Very few MS-63's are "gemmy" and only about half of MS-64's as well as most of the higher grades. I've seen coins graded as high as MS-66 that aren't very attractive. It is in this condition that some dates are rather elusive and always have been. The destruction of mint sets has eliminated much of the source of such attractive coins.
But, again, it's the chBU that is the sweet spot of most collectors' preferences and this is the grade that too few exist of many dates because of neglect and tarnish. It is chBU where demand is going to have the most effect on price in terms of market size. Of course gemmy coins and Gems are going to go even higher but the number of these coins is much lower for almost every date.
The '69 and '71 will probably be the stars in chBU with the '68, '70, and '71-D not too far behind. The '68-D and '69-D have some chance of being in low supply but the '68-D was a recognized "scarcity" in 1968 and some were set aside. The '69-D cleans up well.
Yes! That's very rare if you have 40 retail customers for a complete set and no supply.
This is the point; there are no retail customers because nobody collects them.
"there are no retail customers because nobody collects them."
" it's the chBU that is the sweet spot of most collectors' preferences"
How can chBU be the collectors' preference if nobody is collecting them?
Not having a roll does not make it rare!
If no one collects them, why are people cutting up sets and selling coins?
Well...
There are tens of millions of each issue other than varieties but people don't collect many moderns from circulation so this isn't part of the supply. Of course they could collect them and I personally really enjoy doing it just this way. If the BU's and Gems got to be high enough priced I'm sure some people would choose to collect something else and some people would collect quarters from circulation. My opinion is that it would take substantially higher prices before people op[t to collect from circulation. I do see lots of chBU clad sets with sliders for the '82 and '83 issues but I doubt the collector noticed it. Uncs are expensive and hard to get so a lot of collectors end up with AU's.
They get cut up for the halfs and dollars.
Not having a roll of '72-D's doesn't matter until you have 40 potential retail customers.
Few of these coins are rare. A '72-D type "h" reverse in Unc is rare. What they are is insufficient in quantity to supply any type of mass market. There are plenty of '76-D quarters in BU but there are not plenty of some other dates.
Words take their meaning from context.
Compared to a mass market like Lincoln cents or morgan dollars there is no market for moderns. All coins tend to be preferred in chBU by the majority of collectors. Any sentence can be parsed in such a way as to be nonsense.
Not sure what you are getting at here as you seem to be referring to my replies from prior threads.
The reason I disputed your prices on these East German coins here is because you have never demonstrated that you have any idea what these coins (world "moderns") are actually worth. It's irrelevant what the list price is, whether $1000 or otherwise. Listing at $1000, $1600 or $2500 doesn't mean this coin ever sold for anything more than a minimal fraction of these prices, unless you have evidence that it actually did.
Where is this evidence and what does this have to do with clad quarters?
There is no evidence - absolutely none - that demographic turnover correlates to the type of change you have implied.
Using your logic, collectors "hate" clad more now than they did in the late 60's and 70's which contradicts your claim. Baby boomers and my generation bought millions of proof and mint sets each and every year for decades. Sales of both have collapsed more recently.
When has any buyer (not just collector) ever paid a paid a premium above FV for coins they did not want?
No, I don't. But then, I already told you the coin you linked isn't worth $20, so your comparison is irrelevant. I'd guess it's worth $1, if that.
Correction, there is no "mass market" at retail prices where dealers find it profitable to carry it as inventory.
Cool, that is our point, too!
Guess we're done here
Liberty: Parent of Science & Industry
For half a century nobody collected them and it just didn't matter.
The difference is no one still collects them and they're all gone. It's impossible for the latter to change but it appears the former is changing.
"Compared to" was not part of your previous comment. Goalposts -> moved.
Ceteris paribus, but all other things are rarely equal. Which is more widely collected- circulated Lincoln cents or chBU double eagles?
If I remember correctly there was and probably still are lots of people very upset when in 65 they stopped using silver. Now that was way high on the list as to why views changed Do you have 40 customers and need some coins. I’ll look around
🎶 shout shout, let it all out 🎶
eBay search for 1965-1998 coinage.
Lincoln cents: 16,855 results for lincoln
Washington quarters: 12,221 results for washington
Yeah, but how many bags??
Liberty: Parent of Science & Industry
Which is more widely collected: Ch BU large cents or circulated large cents.
"All coins tend to be preferred in chBU by the majority of collectors."
Yeah, and I prefer Ferraris over Hyundais.
Wait- what? I have to pay for it? Well, let me see now...
Again, an MS-62 and an MS-65 '72-D each cost 40c at this time. How high does the MS-65 have to go before a nice F from circulation is more appealing?
Depends on the collector. Everybody has a budget.
edited to add... A typical way for people to start collecting is by picking coins out of change. A lot of them never proceed beyond this point, and wouldn't spend even 40 cents for a BU example.
This is often true. Collectors are hoarders by nature. I know older collectors with more advanced collections that still have their whitman blue books with coins they pulled from circulation, sometimes in their childhood. This is partly why I'm fairly certain there are thousands of collectible clad coins sitting in collections. Of course, if the price doesn't increase soon, I'm going to dump them all in a Coinstar.
I don't think they count, as they're not currently available to wholesalers.
I'm not sure what counts anymore.
I'm not sure what coins are good. What years are bad? What the future price point is supposed to be? How we know the attrition rate so accurately?
At this point, all I've learned is: 1969, ChBu, rolls, wholesalers,1%.
I'm just not sure how the mad lib fits together.
I'm a little concerned that poor @wondercoin is going to be bankrupted trying to determine that over a million sets still exist!
Way over a million sets still exist. Way over ten million still exist.
But they are not evenly distributed and many of the coins are ugly and/ or tarnished. As a type coin eagle reverse clad quarters might no be scarce in 10,000 years. Many of the dates are scarce in nice condition.
This thread caused me to retrieve my Whitman and Dansco albums containing clad quarters I have accumulated since 1965.
Some of them are MS coins that are lusterous, with minimal flaws. The best ones are very eye appealing.
Very nice coins to have as part of my collection.
However, I suspect that they would not be of interest to many, if not most collectors above 40 years of age.
“The quarters for which I have the most concern as it applies mint set coins are the '68, '68-D, '69, '69-D, '70, '70-D, '71, '71-D, '77 to '80 P & D. Ironically the '76's are problematical as well but there are many thousands of BU rolls so there's no problem up through MS-65 since these appear in rolls. Above MS-65 they are a little more elusive but this won't affect most collectors.”
CK: Ok- so we have (finally) now established that this situation involving “the days of raw moderns are over” relates specifically in your opinion to the (8) mint set years in particular dated: 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1977, 1978, 1979 and 1980. Let me know if I got that incorrect.
My general comments- not really sure why 1972 and 1973 are left out. These P mint quarters are exceedingly difficult to locate in gem quality even at the moment. The 1974 quarters are decent coins to “tuck away” as well. And, anyone know just how rare the 1974-P dime is in FB in ANY grade? The single coin showing as graded after 35 years of submitting at PCGS does not thrill me with those bands.
Ditto for 1975 and 1976- these quarters are getting tougher and tougher to locate in gem quality. I never dreamed that the 1976-P quarter I found and submitted years ago for my registry set would still remain a pop 1/0 today in just the grade of MS67+. Even very tough dates like 1979 and 1982 already have an MS68 graded. And, anyone ever try to find a 1976-P dime with FB? After (35) years of submitting, a total of 4 coins have been awarded the designation and none higher than MS66 quality! Also, not sure why the list is cut off at 1980 and not extended to 1981? The 1981 quarters are roughly just as tough in gem to locate as other dates on CK’s list from my experience.
Summary- I see no rhyme or reason why the mint set dates are limited to just the (8) dates set out by CK. I think a reasonable argument can be made that the entire 1968-1981 date run is pretty much in the same league, especially as it relates to quarters and dimes, and even more so as it relates to 50C and $1 coins. If one agrees that the entire run of 1968-1981 mint sets are in the “same boat” then it becomes clear that the days of raw moderns are not quite yet over as these sets are available at the moment with a little effort. And by “available” I mean one is able to purchase 500 - 1,000 total sets fairly easily, which is all that the typical collector would ever want just sitting around for years or decades as part of his or her collection.
As Mark Twain said: “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated,”. As is the same with the death of raw moderns at the moment it appears.
As always, just my 2 cents.
Wondercoin
A chBU is a clad quarter that is fully lustrous and reasonably well made. It's a clad quarter that looks pretty good from a few feet away or in low light conditions. It is the grade most in demand in terms of number of collectors. It includes coins that grade all the way from MS-60 to a few bad MS-65's. It's mostly MS-62 to MS-64. This grade represents as most of the production of some dates but others can be worse or even better. Only a little more than half of '76 type I Ikes went into mint sets as chBU or better. Many were just too ugly and went all the way down to "MS-45".
To many collectors it is irrelevant how many superb Gems there are of any date. They have no interest in obtaining a coin above their means or ability to find one in the wild. Often these collections are just for fun and they don't care about higher grades. A few could even be putting collections together of the ugliest uncs they can find. But the issue here is availability of ch BU vis a vis the available supply and it is simply a different list of "rarities" in this lower grade. This list is determined more by the number of coins saved less the attrition and most of these got on the list because of attrition since they all appear in mint sets with mintages in the millions. This attrition is two-fold; on the one hand these sets were heavily destroyed by a market that neglected them and on the other these represent the least stable packaging made by the mint. The coins in the '72-'74 mint sets simply are not tarnished as often making the '72-D much more common than coins like the '80-D that started with a far higher number.
It's a topsy turvy world in the lower grades where quarters from the mid-'80's are much more common despite the much lower initial numbers because because the attrition is lower AND mint set packaging is much more stable.
I love Gems as a collecting goal and believe many collectors will attempt such sets. I don't mean pop tops, just Gem. These have a totally different ranking of rarity than chGem or chBU. In Gem the rarities really stand out and due to the key date's tiny numbers could really perform above anyone's expectations.
ROFL
The first 50 hit are ALL silver coins except a couple of proofs.
I'm not talking about silver or proof. A selection of low grade 1940's era quarters are of no use to a collector who seeks a nice BU (non-SMS) 1966 quarter. 12,000 hits are irrelevant.
Even when I confine the search to relevant hits I see only a couple thousand coins if that. All together this represents a few days supply for a mass market. Dealers, retailers, and wholesalers don't have significant stocks of these either.
Of course people aren't selling all their 40c coins on eBay. But you are just assuming there are mountains of these coins because this is what people have always done. There were just a bunch of rolling hills and they are now eroded away.
It's a rough estimate. I'm not spending half an hour creating search parameters that you're just going to disagree with anyway. Of course there's going to be some silver and proofs in there, but that's not good enough is it? You have to exaggerate on top of that. I just searched again and stopped counting when I got to twenty of the first fifty items being clad non-proofs.
BTW- there's proofs in the Lincolns too.
I don't believe you. Post your search terms- I posted mine.
Even if true, so what?
To be fair, you have embedded in your own argument the reason why you may be wrong. You say that there is no market, "people aren't selling all their 40 cent coins on eBay". That is also why there are no wholesale mountains of coins. But that also means YOUR visibility on these coins is NOT good. It is very hard to know what is in everyone's change jar and whitman albums. IF IF IF they ever caught on, which you sometimes are suggesting, you would suddenly have these coins flowing through the market and the invisible would become visible.
By the way, for fun, I searched for clad sets of quarters on eBay. Spent 30 seconds on it, but there are people selling multiple sets "from rolls". I wouldn't be too sure there aren't any out there.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/193612594082?_trkparms=ispr=1&hash=item2d1435bba2:g:7gEAAOSwWntXMqE5&amdata=enc:AQAGAAACkPYe5NmHp%2B2JMhMi7yxGiTJkPrKr5t53CooMSQt2orsSd3M8ngECaRA0SmyU4KT%2FnnMjQpLwgkWuhifaI9M2sylLNEEISItuJUxe7%2B%2FQUSi14gOkulS9p5YDrjNdR8633P2%2FDOryJFq%2BP1Vq7Sv7UlMbDjRJoyLMbfEBtUhyfoD6m0FO1s84RR55%2FWKNrWAbWZNwYPD8Tb5Gf%2B4J5Cz1vi0SQeGbasAYNcQCC3nT3HDKgnrI%2FFFajQEvc7xw4gZZoLjRw5NqFTeDl0B4%2B2famXRn1%2BSkyFByx0ip9w8n%2FsLINmxqagZMBp1nc5BcgYzwvQ89GTacZpTJnPAFUjKRfBzGwcQIsUjmXCgNdsYRKZGkPYp6TBccTz%2BRsk3vdTui%2F5ADgP5bl44GjqGeoR6j%2Bdde0RcDjDsfdNYp3evGyKt6LkwVQAvDlDlbYfdFpNhIwm%2Frfa4wWBl1tgFSYLI4P3z%2BL0%2FRGXLMDILHTtjlUrDo8xRsU4FZERY%2B3e5onptY%2F7WGb%2BZCg%2BEvcMMImxSHWTN9SBFiWVzXVR6jHYT7n%2FWpdEPrRWLYR76IOV0hWXsxtqA%2FQDyvGQeS8RlXvGyiSH2WyIQY7tnhK85gGndMuV%2FEEXPQBm8q6F30uZlHD9FgBXktFPxV%2B4cI5K139fzwDc7g7DSDtmrf2sbC4hdcvcg36Up5Bv2OE1nUWUvvZ2Lb9sIX%2FLAL52u637qG%2BU8NLkQ7ajH%2B7492EdzH0AibL5Bpb1b9IhJcmYZj0LECSPu7FPYiCZf21Vxx95ZDDLh0RanPh4IBbFSi4XdRVf5c6%2FxZiEI7hFI6Qo4ygGmQvaf5PWWtH19WOcye60U48XMFbQgy20xFBcTVTA2nbnA6mr1g|ampid:PL_CLK|clp:2334524
https://www.ebay.com/itm/224439114815?hash=item34419d1c3f:g:jMcAAOSwYsBbs4IC
I duplicated EXACTLY what you said you did and got almost EXACTLY the same results; lots and lots of silver quarters and two proofs.
But there are only three sets left- we're about to run out!!!
You said:
"The first 50 hit are ALL silver coins except a couple of proofs."
Searched again, 26 of the first 50 listings are non-proof clads.
USA coin lot 1965 - 1998 P&D COMPLETE WASHINGTON QUARTER 63 COIN SET CIRC. to BU
1972 D BU WASHINGTON QUARTER Rainbow Toned US Coin
1976 P&D; Bicentennial Washington Quarter Clad Roll Lot of 40 Coins- VF to AU.
1965 Liberty Washington Quarter U.S. Coin
$10 Roll of Washington Quarters 1965-1998 Mixed (40 Quarters)
COMPLETE GEORGE WASHINGTON US OLD STYLE QUARTER SET 1965-1998 P & D 63 COINS
1982 P Washington Quarter BU US Coin
NEW LISTING1995 P&D Washington Quarters
1965 Clad Bicentennial Washington Quarter (MS65) NGC
1982 P D S Washington Quarter Year Set Proof & BU US 3 Coin Lot
Complete 63 Coin Set 1965-1998 P&D Washington Quarters NICE
NEW LISTING1969 D BU WASHINGTON QUARTER Rainbow Toned US Coin
NEW LISTING1969 D BU WASHINGTON QUARTER Rainbow Toned US Coin
1970 BU Washington Quarter 40-Coin Roll
1980-P WASHINGTON QUARTER 25C PCGS ( MS 66 )
1983 D Washington Quarter Gem BU Coin from Original Bank Roll
1969 D Washington Quarter Uncirculated - clad
1965-P 25c WASHINGTON QUARTER DOLLAR US COIN , TONED, No Reserve $ !
NEW LISTING1968 BU WASHINGTON QUARTER Rainbow Toned US Coin
Roll of 40 Bicentennial 1976 Quarters Circulated
NEW LISTING1969 D BU WASHINGTON QUARTER Rainbow Toned US Coin
1990-1998 P D Washington Quarters 18 coin Set GEM BU Uncirculated in Mint Cello
Uncirculated Toned 1967 Philadelphia Mint Clad Washington Quarter
1965-D Washington Quarter. Error
NEW LISTING1982 D WASHINGTON QUARTER - PCGS MS-62
NEW LISTING1982 D WASHINGTON QUARTER - PCGS MS-62