Greysheet bid on a 1969 Mint set is $5. I've never sold one retail for more than $6. FWiW”
To get a load of them in more quickly (as they were CK’s favorite set) I posted a strong public buy price of $6.10 - $6.15/ set. Subject to a 10% deduction for non-fresh spotted sets. I got in plenty of sets and many were fresh and many were not. I have now lowered my buy price a bit under $6 as I now have plenty of quantity.
Did I pay $1/set more than I had to in order to capture a mini hoard of these sets? Probably. But, for $100 tuition I wanted to teach Lauren this month what I discovered 39 years ago and what CK discovered 45 years ago. I wanted her to learn the true difficulty of every single coin in that set. And, a picture is worth 1,000 words.
Ditto for $100 “education fee” on every year in the 70’s through 1981. “Old timers” like myself and CK (into our 60s and closing in on our 70s) are running out of time to teach the new generation about the rarity of 1965-1998 coinage (and beyond). I’ll save a precious year or two in the training potentially overpaying by 50 cents or $1/set for thousands and thousands of sets now. But, the education may prove to be priceless in the end.
Wondercoin
Please visit my website at www.wondercoins.com and my ebay auctions under my user name www.wondercoin.com.
@CoinscratchFever said: @cladking Thanks for the info, I just ordered from Golden Eagle 45 sets including 10 each of '68 & '69. I'll get back with results.
Good luck.
I believe they have the stock but you might not know for sure until Monday.
I feel pretty confident they have what I ordered as their website detailed the ones that were out of stock and excepted the quantities I added to the cart for in stock.
I found it interesting that the newer sets were much higher than the older.
I don’t remember exactly but I paid like 7 to 9 dollars a set for the 69’s which is about 50% cheaper than I’ve purchased them in the past from antique dealers and pawn shops.
I didn’t mind that either with the hopes of catching a wild card.
The 25 other sets I purchased were either years that the Lincoln cent had varieties or just years that I need for my set.
Greysheet bid on a 1969 Mint set is $5. I've never sold one retail for more than $6. FWiW
You’d do well here in South Texas with a brick and mortar
Maybe you should send me your online store address so. I can come do a little shopping.
@CoinscratchFever said: @cladking Thanks for the info, I just ordered from Golden Eagle 45 sets including 10 each of '68 & '69. I'll get back with results.
Good luck.
I believe they have the stock but you might not know for sure until Monday.
I feel pretty confident they have what I ordered as their website detailed the ones that were out of stock and excepted the quantities I added to the cart for in stock.
I found it interesting that the newer sets were much higher than the older.
I don’t remember exactly but I paid like 7 to 9 dollars a set for the 69’s which is about 50% cheaper than I’ve purchased them in the past from antique dealers and pawn shops.
I didn’t mind that either with the hopes of catching a wild card.
The 25 other sets I purchased were either years that the Lincoln cent had varieties or just years that I need for my set.
Greysheet bid on a 1969 Mint set is $5. I've never sold one retail for more than $6. FWiW
It's just in the last month this has been going on.
I'm guessing you don't sell many of these retail. I'm guessing you periodically ship them off to one of the wholesalers.
@wondercoin said:
Greysheet bid on a 1969 Mint set is $5. I've never sold one retail for more than $6. FWiW”
To get a load of them in more quickly (as they were CK’s favorite set) I posted a strong public buy price of $6.10 - $6.15/ set. Subject to a 10% deduction for non-fresh spotted sets. I got in plenty of sets and many were fresh and many were not. I have now lowered my buy price a bit under $6 as I now have plenty of quantity.
Did I pay $1/set more than I had to in order to capture a mini hoard of these sets? Probably. But, for $100 tuition I wanted to teach Lauren this month what I discovered 39 years ago and what CK discovered 45 years ago. I wanted her to learn the true difficulty of every single coin in that set. And, a picture is worth 1,000 words.
Ditto for $100 “education fee” on every year in the 70’s through 1981. “Old timers” like myself and CK (into our 60s and closing in on our 70s) are running out of time to teach the new generation about the rarity of 1965-1998 coinage (and beyond). I’ll save a precious year or two in the training potentially overpaying by 50 cents or $1/set for thousands and thousands of sets now. But, the education may prove to be priceless in the end.
Wondercoin
It wasn't meant as a criticism of anyone. A motivated buyer will always pay more than a reluctant buyer. A motivated seller will always realize less than a reluctant seller. Guides are guides.
@wondercoin said:
Greysheet bid on a 1969 Mint set is $5. I've never sold one retail for more than $6. FWiW”
To get a load of them in more quickly (as they were CK’s favorite set) I posted a strong public buy price of $6.10 - $6.15/ set. Subject to a 10% deduction for non-fresh spotted sets. I got in plenty of sets and many were fresh and many were not. I have now lowered my buy price a bit under $6 as I now have plenty of quantity.
Did I pay $1/set more than I had to in order to capture a mini hoard of these sets? Probably. But, for $100 tuition I wanted to teach Lauren this month what I discovered 39 years ago and what CK discovered 45 years ago. I wanted her to learn the true difficulty of every single coin in that set. And, a picture is worth 1,000 words.
Ditto for $100 “education fee” on every year in the 70’s through 1981. “Old timers” like myself and CK (into our 60s and closing in on our 70s) are running out of time to teach the new generation about the rarity of 1965-1998 coinage (and beyond). I’ll save a precious year or two in the training potentially overpaying by 50 cents or $1/set for thousands and thousands of sets now. But, the education may prove to be priceless in the end.
It is mostly the Ike sets I've been seeing at higher prices but I am surprised that $6.10 per set would get much response from sellers. It is largely the potential demand affecting the supply of the '69 sets rather than the actual demand for Ikes on the later sets. The half dollars bring really good money from the '69 set. It makes the rest of the set free. You can even sell the culls for $3.50 now.
By the by, I can't remember the last time I saw a half dollar from this set that didn't need to be soaked. Some aren't very bad but all the ones I see are at least hazed. Once they are soaked they seem to be stable. I have a few coins I soaked decades ago and they're still bright.
@CoinscratchFever said: @cladking Thanks for the info, I just ordered from Golden Eagle 45 sets including 10 each of '68 & '69. I'll get back with results.
Good luck.
I believe they have the stock but you might not know for sure until Monday.
I feel pretty confident they have what I ordered as their website detailed the ones that were out of stock and excepted the quantities I added to the cart for in stock.
I found it interesting that the newer sets were much higher than the older.
I don’t remember exactly but I paid like 7 to 9 dollars a set for the 69’s which is about 50% cheaper than I’ve purchased them in the past from antique dealers and pawn shops.
I didn’t mind that either with the hopes of catching a wild card.
The 25 other sets I purchased were either years that the Lincoln cent had varieties or just years that I need for my set.
Greysheet bid on a 1969 Mint set is $5. I've never sold one retail for more than $6. FWiW
It's just in the last month this has been going on.
I'm guessing you don't sell many of these retail. I'm guessing you periodically ship them off to one of the wholesalers.
Yes, I ship them to wholesalers at $4.25 (usually, haven't sold any recently) because it is so hard to get $6 retail for them. The price on these does seem to be a bit higher these days, but demand is still tepid.
Seriously, there are coins in all years of the 20th Century that are exceedingly rare in high grade. Back in 2001/2002, when I started here, I spoke of 1953-P & 1954-P 1C and even 1963-D 1C in just MS67RD grade as examples of condition rarity. And, I was literally laughed at. I rarely sell coins from my sets (less than 1% of my collection generally each decade). But, I was offered $20,000 for one of those “fairly modern” Lincoln’s and I said “bye bye”. I figured I would just (try to) slab another. Well- I never did - yet. Gradeflation (likely) kicked in and prices have dropped on these coins, especially the 53-P. The 54-P is still a big time coin in true MS67RD. There is another coin from the 1980s that I spent about 25 years trying to slab in the top grade. It wasn’t in a series I seriously collect so I sold it to a great customer at the time who needed it. I’ve now spent about 10 more years (unsuccessfully) trying to slab another. Still working on it.
When I sold my 1999-D NJ 25C MS68 to a very good customer at the time (a coin I found hunting through thousands and thousands of coins, and slabbed shortly after state quarters were released), I figured it would take me another year or so to produce another coin. I took me around 17 years to produce the second coin. It remains pop 2/0 to this day about 22 years later. The first coin is now in Mr. Hansen’s #2 set (my former customer’s state quarter set sold). The incredible #1 MS state quarter set has never been able to capture that coin in pop top MS68 grade. I still sit with my second coin it took me about 17 more years to find and slab. If I can produce a third coin in the next (20) years, maybe I can offer it to the #1 set collector who I have helped with his set in the past. An example of just how tough these moderns are in top condition!
Again, the second half of the 20th Century is filled with great condition rarity coins that will have their day in the Sun soon.
Wondercoin
Please visit my website at www.wondercoins.com and my ebay auctions under my user name www.wondercoin.com.
@CoinscratchFever said: @cladking Thanks for the info, I just ordered from Golden Eagle 45 sets including 10 each of '68 & '69. I'll get back with results.
Good luck.
I believe they have the stock but you might not know for sure until Monday.
I feel pretty confident they have what I ordered as their website detailed the ones that were out of stock and excepted the quantities I added to the cart for in stock.
I found it interesting that the newer sets were much higher than the older.
I don’t remember exactly but I paid like 7 to 9 dollars a set for the 69’s which is about 50% cheaper than I’ve purchased them in the past from antique dealers and pawn shops.
I didn’t mind that either with the hopes of catching a wild card.
The 25 other sets I purchased were either years that the Lincoln cent had varieties or just years that I need for my set.
Greysheet bid on a 1969 Mint set is $5. I've never sold one retail for more than $6. FWiW
It's just in the last month this has been going on.
I'm guessing you don't sell many of these retail. I'm guessing you periodically ship them off to one of the wholesalers.
Yes, I ship them to wholesalers at $4.25 (usually, haven't sold any recently) because it is so hard to get $6 retail for them. The price on these does seem to be a bit higher these days, but demand is still tepid.
Interesting. Melt is around $3.86 for the half (there is only one in the set - Denver only). Factor in $0.03 for the 3 Lincolns, $0.10 for the 2 Jeffersons, and $0.20 for the 2 Roosevelts, and $0.50 for the 2 Washington quarters = = $4.69 melt + face for the other coins. That is really cheap. It would almost seem like less headache to cut the Kennedy half dollars out and put them in a roll to sell as bullion and deposit the coins at the bank.
@CoinscratchFever said: @cladking Thanks for the info, I just ordered from Golden Eagle 45 sets including 10 each of '68 & '69. I'll get back with results.
Good luck.
I believe they have the stock but you might not know for sure until Monday.
I feel pretty confident they have what I ordered as their website detailed the ones that were out of stock and excepted the quantities I added to the cart for in stock.
I found it interesting that the newer sets were much higher than the older.
I don’t remember exactly but I paid like 7 to 9 dollars a set for the 69’s which is about 50% cheaper than I’ve purchased them in the past from antique dealers and pawn shops.
I didn’t mind that either with the hopes of catching a wild card.
The 25 other sets I purchased were either years that the Lincoln cent had varieties or just years that I need for my set.
Greysheet bid on a 1969 Mint set is $5. I've never sold one retail for more than $6. FWiW
It's just in the last month this has been going on.
I'm guessing you don't sell many of these retail. I'm guessing you periodically ship them off to one of the wholesalers.
Yes, I ship them to wholesalers at $4.25 (usually, haven't sold any recently) because it is so hard to get $6 retail for them. The price on these does seem to be a bit higher these days, but demand is still tepid.
Interesting. Melt is around $3.86 for the half (there is only one in the set - Denver only). Factor in $0.03 for the 3 Lincolns, $0.10 for the 2 Jeffersons, and $0.20 for the 2 Roosevelts, and $0.50 for the 2 Washington quarters = = $4.69 melt + face for the other coins. That is really cheap. It would almost seem like less headache to cut the Kennedy half dollars out and put them in a roll to sell as bullion and deposit the coins at the bank.
This shows how low the demand really is.
Like I said, it's been a while since I shipped any. At current silver prices, I would remove the half and coinstar the rest.
Interesting. Melt is around $3.86 for the half (there is only one in the set - Denver only). Factor in $0.03 for the 3 Lincolns, $0.10 for the 2 Jeffersons, and $0.20 for the 2 Roosevelts, and $0.50 for the 2 Washington quarters = = $4.69 melt + face for the other coins. That is really cheap. It would almost seem like less headache to cut the Kennedy half dollars out and put them in a roll to sell as bullion and deposit the coins at the bank.
Wholesale on the half dollar is $5.25
Of course it has to be chBU and in my experience none of them are without a three day soak is isopropyl. Even after the soak only about two out of three are chBU and the others will have spots, streaks, and excessive marking. They still wholesale at $3.50 no matter how ugly.
But the real potential is the quarters and Philly dime. Half the Phillys will clean up and 75% of the Denvers. Nearly half of the Phillys that do clean up are too ugly to sell as chBU. There is no supply of these other than the few surviving sets.
I’m confused. Wondercoin is aiming for top pops and CK is advocating demand for choice BU coins. Different goals AND different demand/ value proposition?
Seated Half Society member #38 "Got a flaming heart, can't get my fill"
Interesting. Melt is around $3.86 for the half (there is only one in the set - Denver only). Factor in $0.03 for the 3 Lincolns, $0.10 for the 2 Jeffersons, and $0.20 for the 2 Roosevelts, and $0.50 for the 2 Washington quarters = = $4.69 melt + face for the other coins. That is really cheap. It would almost seem like less headache to cut the Kennedy half dollars out and put them in a roll to sell as bullion and deposit the coins at the bank.
Wholesale on the half dollar is $5.25
Of course it has to be chBU and in my experience none of them are without a three day soak is isopropyl. Even after the soak only about two out of three are chBU and the others will have spots, streaks, and excessive marking. They still wholesale at $3.50 no matter how ugly.
But the real potential is the quarters and Philly dime. Half the Phillys will clean up and 75% of the Denvers. Nearly half of the Phillys that do clean up are too ugly to sell as chBU. **There is no supply of these other than the few surviving sets. **
Interesting. Melt is around $3.86 for the half (there is only one in the set - Denver only). Factor in $0.03 for the 3 Lincolns, $0.10 for the 2 Jeffersons, and $0.20 for the 2 Roosevelts, and $0.50 for the 2 Washington quarters = = $4.69 melt + face for the other coins. That is really cheap. It would almost seem like less headache to cut the Kennedy half dollars out and put them in a roll to sell as bullion and deposit the coins at the bank.
Wholesale on the half dollar is $5.25
Of course it has to be chBU and in my experience none of them are without a three day soak is isopropyl. Even after the soak only about two out of three are chBU and the others will have spots, streaks, and excessive marking. They still wholesale at $3.50 no matter how ugly.
But the real potential is the quarters and Philly dime. Half the Phillys will clean up and 75% of the Denvers. Nearly half of the Phillys that do clean up are too ugly to sell as chBU. **There is no supply of these other than the few surviving sets. **
Bank rolls
@cladking believes that no one set aside original rolls of these
@Catbert said:
I’m confused. Wondercoin is aiming for top pops and CK is advocating demand for choice BU coins. Different goals AND different demand/ value proposition?
We're all confused. The goalposts keep moving and the field is now 850 yards long.
The argument seems to go:
There is no demand for these so the supply is too low to keep up with the huge demand for these.
@Catbert said:
I’m confused. Wondercoin is aiming for top pops and CK is advocating demand for choice BU coins. Different goals AND different demand/ value proposition?
Wondercoin likes pop tops.
It's not that I don't like them it's just that they are really hard to find. Most people would be well advised to buy them slabbed rather than look for them since they could wear out more money in shoe leather than they cost. This isn't to say anyone should collect them, just that if you do it might be easier and cheaper to buy them. Wondercoin works hard for his money.
I like gemmy coins. My favorite grade is nice clean well struck coins most of which will grade between MS-64 and MS-66 though a few MS-63 I'd call "gemmy". But the market doesn't care a lot about "gemmy" it mostly cares about chBU and many of the modern quarters are so scarce in chBU that the supply can't sup[port a mass market. Many collectors would have to settle for ugly coins or for nice attractive VF's. I believe in the long run the lower grades will do better. No, they won't be worth so much but I can find "50" chBU's for every Gem and (almost) "50" Gems for every coin that has a shot at being a pop top.
Right now a chBU '69 quarter has no value. More accurately they aren't worth enough to cover the postage except in large quantity and nobody has a large quantity.
Yes. There are a few bank rolls of '69 half dollars and most of these have held up pretty well. They are still pristine. But most are pretty ugly because of poor production qualities. If you want nice well made coins from new dies they're far easier to find in mint sets. Real Gems are mostly found in the mint set. They aren't rare but they're much scarcer than people believe. About 3% are gemmy and half of those are true Gems. Of course now days Gems are far harder to find in the surviving sets and they all need to be soaked. A lot won't clean up.
@cladking believes that no one set aside original rolls of these
This is simple. 1969 rolls of cents are very common. Nickels are very common but the S is a little less common, The Philly dime is scarce. The Denver dime is very uncommon. The Philly quarter is rare. The Denver quarter is very uncommon. The half dollar is less common.
This is what people set aside in 1969. And while I say the cents are common it should be kept in mind that many have been lost or corroded and it is very difficult to estimate the attrition on the BU rolls.
All the mint set coins had the same mintage of less than two million but very few dimes and quarters survive from sets already destroyed. Some pennies and nickels survive but probably no more than half. Only about half the half dollars survive mostly because they are silver. This makes the a solid price for the half dollar because there is high demand. But there is no demand for the far scarcer quarters and dimes.
It's really not complicated but it evolved over many decades. People have not noticed all the destruction of mint sets because it's not in plain sight and people haven't noticed these sets have tarnished because they don't care.
What I'm trying to say in this thread is that demand has exceeded the supply of the Ike mint sets (1973-'78). This is happening as the last of the scarcer '69 sets are being consumed and without people having saved the quarters. Demand for the quarters has been exploding for some time but is invisible because the mint sets have always been there to satiate the demand. This might not continue this way even if the quarters don't become a mass market but it appears that the trends are firmly in place at this time.
There are virtually no original rolls of eagle reverse clad quarters of any date. When they turn up most are just spent. There are a few dates that are less rare like '65, '68-D, '69-D, '74, '78's and '79's. The '82's and '83's were once more common but they have been split up for singles. Even the most common are scarce compared to the mint sets because mint sets are the raw material of modern collections and demand is finally overtaking supply.
I’m with Wondercoin on this one, top pop is where it’s at. And if you enjoy the hunt it doesn’t really matter how much more you ended up paying.
In fact the longer it takes the more you’ll appreciate it.
There’s also a disconnect between retail guy and wholesale guy and then of course the mixture of the both guy.
If that makes sense.
CK: Can you tell us why the 1969-P quarter is so “rare” as compared to the 1969-D yet:
The actual mintage of the P is more than 65 million greater than the D
Even today, dealer wholesale buy on the D is higher than dealer wholesale buy on the P.
1969 176,212,000
1969-D 114,372,000
What exactly happened to these 65 million extra P coins? Why after 50+ years has dealer demand made the D mint a more valuable coin? Dealers who have been unsuccessfully looking for P mint rolls for the past 5, 10 or even 15 years still have not raised their bids and continue to pay more for the D coins? This makes sense to you?
Wondercoin
P.S. You are talking about nice Uncs. here, not gem+ coins. We know about how rare the gems are (see the 2018 Article “US Coins – What’s up With the 1969 Quarter? The Key Date You Didn’t Know About”).
Please visit my website at www.wondercoins.com and my ebay auctions under my user name www.wondercoin.com.
"What I'm trying to say in this thread is that demand has exceeded the supply of the Ike mint sets (1973-'78). This is happening as the last of the scarcer '69 sets are being consumed and without people having saved the quarters. Demand for the quarters has been exploding for some time but is invisible because the mint sets have always been there to satiate the demand. This might not continue this way even if the quarters don't become a mass market but it appears that the trends are firmly in place at this time."
Years ago I used to search the '69 sets for the RPM dime. Once I clipped the dime out of the set the rest of the coins, with the exception of the 50c, were spent. I probably cherried 25 or more of the dime so I contributed in a small way to the scarcity of the Philly dime and the quarters. The RPM dimes always did well on Teletrade.
@wondercoin said:
CK: Can you tell us why the 1969-P quarter is so “rare” as compared to the 1969-D yet:
The actual mintage of the P is more than 65 million greater than the D
Even today, dealer wholesale buy on the D is higher than dealer wholesale buy on the P.
1969 176,212,000
1969-D 114,372,000
What exactly happened to these 65 million extra P coins? Why after 50+ years has dealer demand made the D mint a more valuable coin? Dealers who have been unsuccessfully looking for P mint rolls for the past 5, 10 or even 15 years still have not raised their bids and continue to pay more for the D coins? This makes sense to you?
Wondercoin
P.S. You are talking about nice Uncs. here, not gem+ coins. We know about how rare the gems are (see the 2018 Article “US Coins – What’s up With the 1969 Quarter? The Key Date You Didn’t Know About”).
Back in 1964 it was extremely profitable to set aside new coin for speculation and many people did. Virtually entire mintages of some coins were saved out. These coins are still exceedingly common despite their much lower mintages. But in 1964 with the date freeze and crash of the market this activity was greatly curtailed and then dropped even more in '65 and '66. By 1968 it was apparent there was simply no demand for any 1965 and later coins and many of these that had been saved were spent and setting aside coins dropped even further.
But a few people continued to save a few of the "rare" dates and the '69-D got caught up in this net. A lot of '69-D's made for circulation were very attractive coins so this made it easy for speculators. The '69-P seemed too common and almost every coin looked awful so there was no point in setting aside ugly common coins. This date just isn't out there and never was. They are worn smooth in circulation now.
This leaves mint sets and the disparity in quality appears here as well. 90% of the Denvers were nice chBU's as issued but only about 60% of the Phillys. The rest were just ugly. But again there has been very little demand for the coins so when sets are destroyed there is a strong tendency for both quarters to go into circulation. The Denver attracts a little interest due to its low mintage and relative scarcity in circulation not to mention the higher price and better quality so is slightly more likely to be saved or placed in a collection.
The higher price is just a remnant of the status quo of 1964. Lower mintages had higher prices so the D is more than the P. But also it probably reflects the actual market to a limited extent. If someone wanted a roll of each and issued a bid then he'd receive a mint set roll of each and the Philly roll would be ugly and satisfy his bid. Philly coins would accumulate at bid. This is likely immaterial because there is very little demand. The few people saving these do not trade them back and forth and the only buyers are wholesalers who rarely issue a bid because they cut more mint sets to satisfy their demand. Mint set quantity has always simply dwarfed the demand making lightly traded coins from the sets to be free of a true wholesale market. Long and short of it is most of the prices for eagle reverse clad quarters bear little relationship to their availability now or in the past and little relationship to demand. Perhaps one might say the quoted prices would reflect the original roll market if there were a market or any original rolls. In almost all cases the quarter rolls seen are mint set rolls which is just as well since the quality of the coins that went into circulation was often quite poor. There is a strong correlation with mint set quality over the years (bad dates were bad in the mint set too usually) but most of the Gems mad in any given year went into mint sets. Finding Gems in original rolls was very difficult but finding them in sets is like shooting fish in a barrel.
The '69 Philly coin tarnishes a little earlier in the set and is less likely to be OK after a soak.
The '69-D is hardly "common". Nice pristine examples tend to be very attractive and is a highly desirable coin and MS-64's abound. But in all grades except G to VF it outnumbers the Philly coin. This is where you'll find the "excess" Philly mintage; circulation.
Tonight on GC, a PCGS MS66 1983-P Washington quarter hammered at $733. Retail price guide is $125. There seems to be a large enough population(384) of these not to command a much higher price than retail. I want to sell mine if I can get $700. There is the spitting eagle variety, but this coin does not appear to be that. The right wing of the eagle is strange? It's an ugly coin.
Well looks like PCGS is calling that coin a Spitting Eagle variety, I guess? I had to do a little digging. It was in the pop report for varieties under current auctions. The coin is not attributed as a Spitting Eagle and doesn't look like it from the pics at GC.
“Dealers who have been unsuccessfully looking for P mint rolls for the past 5, 10 or even 15 years still have not raised their bids and continue to pay more for the D coins?”
CK- you never addressed this portion of my comment. If all you say is true about the 1969-P coins being some much harder to find in grades above VF or XF, then why, decades later, are dealers still bidding about 20% more for 1969-D quarters as compared to 1969-P quarters in BU - Ch. BU? Puzzling- isn’t it?
Wondercoin
Please visit my website at www.wondercoins.com and my ebay auctions under my user name www.wondercoin.com.
@wondercoin said:
“Dealers who have been unsuccessfully looking for P mint rolls for the past 5, 10 or even 15 years still have not raised their bids and continue to pay more for the D coins?”
CK- you never addressed this portion of my comment. If all you say is true about the 1969-P coins being some much harder to find in grades above VF or XF, then why, decades later, are dealers still bidding about 20% more for 1969-D quarters as compared to 1969-P quarters in BU - Ch. BU? Puzzling- isn’t it?
The markets are highly inefficient and there is so little activity in this specific market that it's unknown that nice chBU Philly are far less common than chBU Denvers.
These rolls simply aren't seen and don't trade hands. Of course a few mint set rolls trade hands but it's been years since I've seen more than a few bids for them. The flow is largely from dealer to collectors at bid or ask price. Most of the rolls purchased by dealers are at prices based on face value. Even the '82 and '83 rolls would tend to be purchased by dealers this way if there were actually rolls available.
These coins tend to go to the bank or dealer cash registers because there are no buyers.
Of course a few rolls (mostly mint set rolls) do trade hands at bid when a wholesaler needs them but wholesalers tend to cut their own sets or buy them from others who do.
Most of the "activity" in clad eagle reverse quarters is collectors searching rolls. There is activity on eBay but even in aggregate the quarters being traded is not substantial and they merely come along for the ride when mint sets are sold.
This really is the market that will most probably upset the mint sets applecart before too long. Demand is still increasing for the coins but they are mostly gone and there is no wholesale market to which to turn. Nobody can call up anybody and ask for ten rolls of 1969 quarters of any quality at any price because they are in circulation and half of them are permanently lost. If all those in existence were set aside and saved today there would still not be enough for a mass market. Of course it will take years to save all these and by the time the task is complete many thousands more will be lost or corroded.
It is simply impossible to make this a common coin and even the millions of VG's and F's left in circulation will be whittled away by the time the last one is found. If we started today the coin would be as common in VG as most people think it is in MS-65.
The sets were delivered today and now it’s time to hunt. I suppose I’ll first rummage for any gems (not holding my breathe) and then go back through for varieties.
I’ll get back later with the good, bad, and ugly.
@CoinscratchFever said:
The sets were delivered today and now it’s time to hunt. I suppose I’ll first rummage for any gems (not holding my breathe) and then go back through for varieties.
I’ll get back later with the good, bad, and ugly.
@CoinscratchFever said:
The sets were delivered today and now it’s time to hunt. I suppose I’ll first rummage for any gems (not holding my breathe) and then go back through for varieties.
I’ll get back later with the good, bad, and ugly.
Good luck!
Thanks Mannie! I looked at a few tonight and as mentioned here, a very low survival rate. I did find a ‘72 P with 5 full steps but in MS62…
I believe I’ll have better odds buying them randomly at non dealer locales even as random as that occurs.
A short break from CRH will most certainly reinvigorate my CRH.
The 70 D 25c was the best I found from my sets. Even if it squeezed out a 67 it still wouldn’t be enough.
You can see where I touched the 69 and some haze came off. What’s the best way to remove that haze without ruining it? Or is there one.
I'd give it a quick dip in Jeweluster or something similar. Be sure to rinse well. I have a Mint set where the quarter is covered with a white film. I'm gonna dip mine.
Mint sets are a very different story. I think the US mints Cellophane is damn good. But there are still spots here and there very tiny, but unfortunately they grow. What is that black shite on the silver coins anyway? It's got to be a function of the air in the packet heat or moisture, and the chemistry of the coin. I've heard a lot of different stories about it, and how we are all wasting time without intercept shield, or immediate encapsulation into a real holder.
“When you don't know what you're talking about, it's hard to know when you're finished.” - Tommy Smothers
A long time ago (17+ years ago), one could strike a deal with PCGS bulk and drop off hundreds of 1960–1990’s Mint Sets with min. grade requirements that could make the submittor decent money if anything good came out of the sets. The “reject fee” for all coins failing to achieve the grade was cheap enough to give it a shot. When PCGS discontinued this bulk program due to the net money per coin handled being way below what they desired, I was told that the chief bulk grader of this material described his daily hunt for nice coins as akin to “eating soup with a fork”. I never forgot that description of this work.
Yet, IMHO this is the real way to build a world class modern registry set. To get one’s hands dirty and do the work themselves. Not to stroke a check and then claim the pedigree forever on great modern coins. The pedigree belongs to the “hunter” who found the coin often in the middle of a 10 or 12 hour shift of screening a massive pile of clad or state quarters, Presidential dollars, etc.
Just my 2 cents.
Wondercoin
Please visit my website at www.wondercoins.com and my ebay auctions under my user name www.wondercoin.com.
@rooksmith Yours are proof sets not mint sets. I think the packaging is thicker for those. And look at the backside of my 68D cent! Whoever packaged that one was also working with the equipment.
@koynekwest said:
I'd give it a quick dip in Jeweluster or something similar.
If it was me, I'd try ammonia first.
Do not use ammonia. It will clean it pretty well but it will look cleaned. I've tried playing around with dilute ammonia but have had little success. The closest I can get it to "work" is a long soak in a quart of distilled water mixed with about a 1/2 teaspoon of 10% commercial grade 10% ammonia. I don't recommend it but a few coins otherwise lost have come out looking OK. There might be some way to do it but I haven't found it.
The best way to clean cu/ ni and cu/ni clad is a mixture of 91% isopropyl and acetone but it is unwieldy and takes as long as a week long soak. Rinse, pat dry. A much quicker way and nearly as gentle is a mixture of water and dish soap. Just be sure to get all the soap off. A lot of these can't be saved but most of most dates can. Some coins like the '68-P is resistant to every means. Everything that doesn't clean up ends up in alcohol but a lot of stuff is fine without it.
There are going to be some really tough moderns other than just the biggies.
@wondercoin said:
A long time ago (17+ years ago), one could strike a deal with PCGS bulk and drop off hundreds of 1960–1990’s Mint Sets with min. grade requirements that could make the submittor decent money if anything good came out of the sets. The “reject fee” for all coins failing to achieve the grade was cheap enough to give it a shot. When PCGS discontinued this bulk program due to the net money per coin handled being way below what they desired, I was told that the chief bulk grader of this material described his daily hunt for nice coins as akin to “eating soup with a fork”. I never forgot that description of this work.
Yet, IMHO this is the real way to build a world class modern registry set. To get one’s hands dirty and do the work themselves. Not to stroke a check and then claim the pedigree forever on great modern coins. The pedigree belongs to the “hunter” who found the coin often in the middle of a 10 or 12 hour shift of screening a massive pile of clad or state quarters, Presidential dollars, etc.
Just my 2 cents.
It sure is a lot of fun to flip over a nice gemmy '70-S nickel and see six sharp steps. Then every once in a while you'll see a dime that is the first or second strike off of a brand new die. There are some real beauts out there.
Every once in a while I'll find one in a safety deposit box that I didn't even remember setting aside.
Unless you want pop tops or quantities of a date that has already gone up you're better off buying slabbed coins. It was expensive finding these back in the day. Even MS-67 '72-D's weren't "easy". Maybe 2% were 67 or better, 5% 66 or better, and 8% 65 or better.
@CoinscratchFever said:
The 70 D 25c was the best I found from my sets. Even if it squeezed out a 67 it still wouldn’t be enough.
You can see where I touched the 69 and some haze came off. What’s the best way to remove that haze without ruining it? Or is there one.
All the quarters will look better after a gentle cleaning. They all have a little hazing. The '69 is still in the early stages and will probably clean up. It might be as nice as the '70-D and is a little tougher date.
Yea soooo. Someone here on the forum once mentioned a watered down acetone. I swore to never use acetone again at least on copper. Maybe the soap and water would be a safe choice.
Unless you want pop tops or quantities of a date that has already gone up you're better off buying slabbed coins. It was expensive finding these back in the day. Even MS-67 '72-D's weren't "easy". Maybe 2% were 67 or better, 5% 66 or better, and 8% 65 or better.
I either got real lucky or Eagle currently has a nice stock. As I only purchased one 1970 set. I might go back for more later this week.
Comments
Greysheet bid on a 1969 Mint set is $5. I've never sold one retail for more than $6. FWiW”
To get a load of them in more quickly (as they were CK’s favorite set) I posted a strong public buy price of $6.10 - $6.15/ set. Subject to a 10% deduction for non-fresh spotted sets. I got in plenty of sets and many were fresh and many were not. I have now lowered my buy price a bit under $6 as I now have plenty of quantity.
Did I pay $1/set more than I had to in order to capture a mini hoard of these sets? Probably. But, for $100 tuition I wanted to teach Lauren this month what I discovered 39 years ago and what CK discovered 45 years ago. I wanted her to learn the true difficulty of every single coin in that set. And, a picture is worth 1,000 words.
Ditto for $100 “education fee” on every year in the 70’s through 1981. “Old timers” like myself and CK (into our 60s and closing in on our 70s) are running out of time to teach the new generation about the rarity of 1965-1998 coinage (and beyond). I’ll save a precious year or two in the training potentially overpaying by 50 cents or $1/set for thousands and thousands of sets now. But, the education may prove to be priceless in the end.
Wondercoin
You’d do well here in South Texas with a brick and mortar
Maybe you should send me your online store address so. I can come do a little shopping.
They are very hard to retail
It wasn't meant as a criticism of anyone. A motivated buyer will always pay more than a reluctant buyer. A motivated seller will always realize less than a reluctant seller. Guides are guides.
It is mostly the Ike sets I've been seeing at higher prices but I am surprised that $6.10 per set would get much response from sellers. It is largely the potential demand affecting the supply of the '69 sets rather than the actual demand for Ikes on the later sets. The half dollars bring really good money from the '69 set. It makes the rest of the set free. You can even sell the culls for $3.50 now.
By the by, I can't remember the last time I saw a half dollar from this set that didn't need to be soaked. Some aren't very bad but all the ones I see are at least hazed. Once they are soaked they seem to be stable. I have a few coins I soaked decades ago and they're still bright.
Yes, I ship them to wholesalers at $4.25 (usually, haven't sold any recently) because it is so hard to get $6 retail for them. The price on these does seem to be a bit higher these days, but demand is still tepid.
“Yes, I ship them to wholesalers at $4.25”
If they are fresh, just ship them to me at $6! 😆
Seriously, there are coins in all years of the 20th Century that are exceedingly rare in high grade. Back in 2001/2002, when I started here, I spoke of 1953-P & 1954-P 1C and even 1963-D 1C in just MS67RD grade as examples of condition rarity. And, I was literally laughed at. I rarely sell coins from my sets (less than 1% of my collection generally each decade). But, I was offered $20,000 for one of those “fairly modern” Lincoln’s and I said “bye bye”. I figured I would just (try to) slab another. Well- I never did - yet. Gradeflation (likely) kicked in and prices have dropped on these coins, especially the 53-P. The 54-P is still a big time coin in true MS67RD. There is another coin from the 1980s that I spent about 25 years trying to slab in the top grade. It wasn’t in a series I seriously collect so I sold it to a great customer at the time who needed it. I’ve now spent about 10 more years (unsuccessfully) trying to slab another. Still working on it.
When I sold my 1999-D NJ 25C MS68 to a very good customer at the time (a coin I found hunting through thousands and thousands of coins, and slabbed shortly after state quarters were released), I figured it would take me another year or so to produce another coin. I took me around 17 years to produce the second coin. It remains pop 2/0 to this day about 22 years later. The first coin is now in Mr. Hansen’s #2 set (my former customer’s state quarter set sold). The incredible #1 MS state quarter set has never been able to capture that coin in pop top MS68 grade. I still sit with my second coin it took me about 17 more years to find and slab. If I can produce a third coin in the next (20) years, maybe I can offer it to the #1 set collector who I have helped with his set in the past. An example of just how tough these moderns are in top condition!
Again, the second half of the 20th Century is filled with great condition rarity coins that will have their day in the Sun soon.
Wondercoin
Interesting. Melt is around $3.86 for the half (there is only one in the set - Denver only). Factor in $0.03 for the 3 Lincolns, $0.10 for the 2 Jeffersons, and $0.20 for the 2 Roosevelts, and $0.50 for the 2 Washington quarters = = $4.69 melt + face for the other coins. That is really cheap. It would almost seem like less headache to cut the Kennedy half dollars out and put them in a roll to sell as bullion and deposit the coins at the bank.
This shows how low the demand really is.
“This shows how low the demand really is.”
Nope. It simply shows that selling them for $4.25 is not the way to go.
Demand is very strong- I’ll buy 1,000 decent sets tomorrow for $6/set. Just this one date alone, I’m in for 1,000 units. Not enough demand for you?
Wondercoin
I’m not a big Baller like you, just yet :-)
But if there’s even a glimmer of hope from my sets coming next week I’m gonna go back for at least 100.
Like I said, it's been a while since I shipped any. At current silver prices, I would remove the half and coinstar the rest.
Personally, I try to buy a few s possible.
Wholesale on the half dollar is $5.25
Of course it has to be chBU and in my experience none of them are without a three day soak is isopropyl. Even after the soak only about two out of three are chBU and the others will have spots, streaks, and excessive marking. They still wholesale at $3.50 no matter how ugly.
But the real potential is the quarters and Philly dime. Half the Phillys will clean up and 75% of the Denvers. Nearly half of the Phillys that do clean up are too ugly to sell as chBU. There is no supply of these other than the few surviving sets.
I’m confused. Wondercoin is aiming for top pops and CK is advocating demand for choice BU coins. Different goals AND different demand/ value proposition?
"Got a flaming heart, can't get my fill"
Bank rolls
@cladking believes that no one set aside original rolls of these
We're all confused. The goalposts keep moving and the field is now 850 yards long.
The argument seems to go:
There is no demand for these so the supply is too low to keep up with the huge demand for these.
Even God is confused.
Wondercoin likes pop tops.
It's not that I don't like them it's just that they are really hard to find. Most people would be well advised to buy them slabbed rather than look for them since they could wear out more money in shoe leather than they cost. This isn't to say anyone should collect them, just that if you do it might be easier and cheaper to buy them. Wondercoin works hard for his money.
I like gemmy coins. My favorite grade is nice clean well struck coins most of which will grade between MS-64 and MS-66 though a few MS-63 I'd call "gemmy". But the market doesn't care a lot about "gemmy" it mostly cares about chBU and many of the modern quarters are so scarce in chBU that the supply can't sup[port a mass market. Many collectors would have to settle for ugly coins or for nice attractive VF's. I believe in the long run the lower grades will do better. No, they won't be worth so much but I can find "50" chBU's for every Gem and (almost) "50" Gems for every coin that has a shot at being a pop top.
Right now a chBU '69 quarter has no value. More accurately they aren't worth enough to cover the postage except in large quantity and nobody has a large quantity.
Yes. There are a few bank rolls of '69 half dollars and most of these have held up pretty well. They are still pristine. But most are pretty ugly because of poor production qualities. If you want nice well made coins from new dies they're far easier to find in mint sets. Real Gems are mostly found in the mint set. They aren't rare but they're much scarcer than people believe. About 3% are gemmy and half of those are true Gems. Of course now days Gems are far harder to find in the surviving sets and they all need to be soaked. A lot won't clean up.
Being struck from fresh dies is, in my opinion, the major reason to get 'em from the Mint sets.
This is simple. 1969 rolls of cents are very common. Nickels are very common but the S is a little less common, The Philly dime is scarce. The Denver dime is very uncommon. The Philly quarter is rare. The Denver quarter is very uncommon. The half dollar is less common.
This is what people set aside in 1969. And while I say the cents are common it should be kept in mind that many have been lost or corroded and it is very difficult to estimate the attrition on the BU rolls.
All the mint set coins had the same mintage of less than two million but very few dimes and quarters survive from sets already destroyed. Some pennies and nickels survive but probably no more than half. Only about half the half dollars survive mostly because they are silver. This makes the a solid price for the half dollar because there is high demand. But there is no demand for the far scarcer quarters and dimes.
It's really not complicated but it evolved over many decades. People have not noticed all the destruction of mint sets because it's not in plain sight and people haven't noticed these sets have tarnished because they don't care.
What I'm trying to say in this thread is that demand has exceeded the supply of the Ike mint sets (1973-'78). This is happening as the last of the scarcer '69 sets are being consumed and without people having saved the quarters. Demand for the quarters has been exploding for some time but is invisible because the mint sets have always been there to satiate the demand. This might not continue this way even if the quarters don't become a mass market but it appears that the trends are firmly in place at this time.
There are virtually no original rolls of eagle reverse clad quarters of any date. When they turn up most are just spent. There are a few dates that are less rare like '65, '68-D, '69-D, '74, '78's and '79's. The '82's and '83's were once more common but they have been split up for singles. Even the most common are scarce compared to the mint sets because mint sets are the raw material of modern collections and demand is finally overtaking supply.
I’m with Wondercoin on this one, top pop is where it’s at. And if you enjoy the hunt it doesn’t really matter how much more you ended up paying.
In fact the longer it takes the more you’ll appreciate it.
There’s also a disconnect between retail guy and wholesale guy and then of course the mixture of the both guy.
If that makes sense.
CK: Can you tell us why the 1969-P quarter is so “rare” as compared to the 1969-D yet:
1969 176,212,000
1969-D 114,372,000
What exactly happened to these 65 million extra P coins? Why after 50+ years has dealer demand made the D mint a more valuable coin? Dealers who have been unsuccessfully looking for P mint rolls for the past 5, 10 or even 15 years still have not raised their bids and continue to pay more for the D coins? This makes sense to you?
Wondercoin
P.S. You are talking about nice Uncs. here, not gem+ coins. We know about how rare the gems are (see the 2018 Article “US Coins – What’s up With the 1969 Quarter? The Key Date You Didn’t Know About”).
"What I'm trying to say in this thread is that demand has exceeded the supply of the Ike mint sets (1973-'78). This is happening as the last of the scarcer '69 sets are being consumed and without people having saved the quarters. Demand for the quarters has been exploding for some time but is invisible because the mint sets have always been there to satiate the demand. This might not continue this way even if the quarters don't become a mass market but it appears that the trends are firmly in place at this time."
Years ago I used to search the '69 sets for the RPM dime. Once I clipped the dime out of the set the rest of the coins, with the exception of the 50c, were spent. I probably cherried 25 or more of the dime so I contributed in a small way to the scarcity of the Philly dime and the quarters. The RPM dimes always did well on Teletrade.
“Years ago I used to search the '69 sets for the RPM dime.”
You didn’t want the RPM quarter?
Wondercoin
Nope. RPMs are not my thing. I only go for the widely repunched ones.
Back in 1964 it was extremely profitable to set aside new coin for speculation and many people did. Virtually entire mintages of some coins were saved out. These coins are still exceedingly common despite their much lower mintages. But in 1964 with the date freeze and crash of the market this activity was greatly curtailed and then dropped even more in '65 and '66. By 1968 it was apparent there was simply no demand for any 1965 and later coins and many of these that had been saved were spent and setting aside coins dropped even further.
But a few people continued to save a few of the "rare" dates and the '69-D got caught up in this net. A lot of '69-D's made for circulation were very attractive coins so this made it easy for speculators. The '69-P seemed too common and almost every coin looked awful so there was no point in setting aside ugly common coins. This date just isn't out there and never was. They are worn smooth in circulation now.
This leaves mint sets and the disparity in quality appears here as well. 90% of the Denvers were nice chBU's as issued but only about 60% of the Phillys. The rest were just ugly. But again there has been very little demand for the coins so when sets are destroyed there is a strong tendency for both quarters to go into circulation. The Denver attracts a little interest due to its low mintage and relative scarcity in circulation not to mention the higher price and better quality so is slightly more likely to be saved or placed in a collection.
The higher price is just a remnant of the status quo of 1964. Lower mintages had higher prices so the D is more than the P. But also it probably reflects the actual market to a limited extent. If someone wanted a roll of each and issued a bid then he'd receive a mint set roll of each and the Philly roll would be ugly and satisfy his bid. Philly coins would accumulate at bid. This is likely immaterial because there is very little demand. The few people saving these do not trade them back and forth and the only buyers are wholesalers who rarely issue a bid because they cut more mint sets to satisfy their demand. Mint set quantity has always simply dwarfed the demand making lightly traded coins from the sets to be free of a true wholesale market. Long and short of it is most of the prices for eagle reverse clad quarters bear little relationship to their availability now or in the past and little relationship to demand. Perhaps one might say the quoted prices would reflect the original roll market if there were a market or any original rolls. In almost all cases the quarter rolls seen are mint set rolls which is just as well since the quality of the coins that went into circulation was often quite poor. There is a strong correlation with mint set quality over the years (bad dates were bad in the mint set too usually) but most of the Gems mad in any given year went into mint sets. Finding Gems in original rolls was very difficult but finding them in sets is like shooting fish in a barrel.
The '69 Philly coin tarnishes a little earlier in the set and is less likely to be OK after a soak.
The '69-D is hardly "common". Nice pristine examples tend to be very attractive and is a highly desirable coin and MS-64's abound. But in all grades except G to VF it outnumbers the Philly coin. This is where you'll find the "excess" Philly mintage; circulation.
Tonight on GC, a PCGS MS66 1983-P Washington quarter hammered at $733. Retail price guide is $125. There seems to be a large enough population(384) of these not to command a much higher price than retail. I want to sell mine if I can get $700. There is the spitting eagle variety, but this coin does not appear to be that. The right wing of the eagle is strange? It's an ugly coin.
https://greatcollections.com/Coin/936318/1983-P-Washington-Quarter-PCGS-MS-66
Edit:
Well looks like PCGS is calling that coin a Spitting Eagle variety, I guess? I had to do a little digging. It was in the pop report for varieties under current auctions. The coin is not attributed as a Spitting Eagle and doesn't look like it from the pics at GC.
https://pcgs.com/coinfacts/coin/1983-p-25c-spitting-eagle/520032
“Dealers who have been unsuccessfully looking for P mint rolls for the past 5, 10 or even 15 years still have not raised their bids and continue to pay more for the D coins?”
CK- you never addressed this portion of my comment. If all you say is true about the 1969-P coins being some much harder to find in grades above VF or XF, then why, decades later, are dealers still bidding about 20% more for 1969-D quarters as compared to 1969-P quarters in BU - Ch. BU? Puzzling- isn’t it?
Wondercoin
The markets are highly inefficient and there is so little activity in this specific market that it's unknown that nice chBU Philly are far less common than chBU Denvers.
These rolls simply aren't seen and don't trade hands. Of course a few mint set rolls trade hands but it's been years since I've seen more than a few bids for them. The flow is largely from dealer to collectors at bid or ask price. Most of the rolls purchased by dealers are at prices based on face value. Even the '82 and '83 rolls would tend to be purchased by dealers this way if there were actually rolls available.
These coins tend to go to the bank or dealer cash registers because there are no buyers.
Of course a few rolls (mostly mint set rolls) do trade hands at bid when a wholesaler needs them but wholesalers tend to cut their own sets or buy them from others who do.
Most of the "activity" in clad eagle reverse quarters is collectors searching rolls. There is activity on eBay but even in aggregate the quarters being traded is not substantial and they merely come along for the ride when mint sets are sold.
This really is the market that will most probably upset the mint sets applecart before too long. Demand is still increasing for the coins but they are mostly gone and there is no wholesale market to which to turn. Nobody can call up anybody and ask for ten rolls of 1969 quarters of any quality at any price because they are in circulation and half of them are permanently lost. If all those in existence were set aside and saved today there would still not be enough for a mass market. Of course it will take years to save all these and by the time the task is complete many thousands more will be lost or corroded.
It is simply impossible to make this a common coin and even the millions of VG's and F's left in circulation will be whittled away by the time the last one is found. If we started today the coin would be as common in VG as most people think it is in MS-65.
The sets were delivered today and now it’s time to hunt. I suppose I’ll first rummage for any gems (not holding my breathe) and then go back through for varieties.
I’ll get back later with the good, bad, and ugly.
Good luck!
Thanks Mannie! I looked at a few tonight and as mentioned here, a very low survival rate. I did find a ‘72 P with 5 full steps but in MS62…
I believe I’ll have better odds buying them randomly at non dealer locales even as random as that occurs.
A short break from CRH will most certainly reinvigorate my CRH.
The sets look pretty good which is a good sign.
A 1972 D Washington just sold at GC for $33.96 in PCGS 67. In fairness, we've been told that is among the most common dates.
https://greatcollections.com/Coin/1024005/1972-D-Washington-Quarter-PCGS-MS-67-Toned
The 70 D 25c was the best I found from my sets. Even if it squeezed out a 67 it still wouldn’t be enough.
You can see where I touched the 69 and some haze came off. What’s the best way to remove that haze without ruining it? Or is there one.
I'd give it a quick dip in Jeweluster or something similar. Be sure to rinse well. I have a Mint set where the quarter is covered with a white film. I'm gonna dip mine.
Have a gander at some of these lovelies. (this is an old change jar stored in a dry attic)
I guess that sort of supports your thesis.
Mint sets are a very different story. I think the US mints Cellophane is damn good. But there are still spots here and there very tiny, but unfortunately they grow. What is that black shite on the silver coins anyway? It's got to be a function of the air in the packet heat or moisture, and the chemistry of the coin. I've heard a lot of different stories about it, and how we are all wasting time without intercept shield, or immediate encapsulation into a real holder.
There a couple of black spots hid
ing on that Franklin Half Reverse, but still its in "mint condition", I hope.
A long time ago (17+ years ago), one could strike a deal with PCGS bulk and drop off hundreds of 1960–1990’s Mint Sets with min. grade requirements that could make the submittor decent money if anything good came out of the sets. The “reject fee” for all coins failing to achieve the grade was cheap enough to give it a shot. When PCGS discontinued this bulk program due to the net money per coin handled being way below what they desired, I was told that the chief bulk grader of this material described his daily hunt for nice coins as akin to “eating soup with a fork”. I never forgot that description of this work.
Yet, IMHO this is the real way to build a world class modern registry set. To get one’s hands dirty and do the work themselves. Not to stroke a check and then claim the pedigree forever on great modern coins. The pedigree belongs to the “hunter” who found the coin often in the middle of a 10 or 12 hour shift of screening a massive pile of clad or state quarters, Presidential dollars, etc.
Just my 2 cents.
Wondercoin
@rooksmith Yours are proof sets not mint sets. I think the packaging is thicker for those. And look at the backside of my 68D cent! Whoever packaged that one was also working with the equipment.
If it was me, I'd try ammonia first.
Do not use ammonia. It will clean it pretty well but it will look cleaned. I've tried playing around with dilute ammonia but have had little success. The closest I can get it to "work" is a long soak in a quart of distilled water mixed with about a 1/2 teaspoon of 10% commercial grade 10% ammonia. I don't recommend it but a few coins otherwise lost have come out looking OK. There might be some way to do it but I haven't found it.
The best way to clean cu/ ni and cu/ni clad is a mixture of 91% isopropyl and acetone but it is unwieldy and takes as long as a week long soak. Rinse, pat dry. A much quicker way and nearly as gentle is a mixture of water and dish soap. Just be sure to get all the soap off. A lot of these can't be saved but most of most dates can. Some coins like the '68-P is resistant to every means. Everything that doesn't clean up ends up in alcohol but a lot of stuff is fine without it.
There are going to be some really tough moderns other than just the biggies.
It sure is a lot of fun to flip over a nice gemmy '70-S nickel and see six sharp steps. Then every once in a while you'll see a dime that is the first or second strike off of a brand new die. There are some real beauts out there.
Every once in a while I'll find one in a safety deposit box that I didn't even remember setting aside.
Unless you want pop tops or quantities of a date that has already gone up you're better off buying slabbed coins. It was expensive finding these back in the day. Even MS-67 '72-D's weren't "easy". Maybe 2% were 67 or better, 5% 66 or better, and 8% 65 or better.
All the quarters will look better after a gentle cleaning. They all have a little hazing. The '69 is still in the early stages and will probably clean up. It might be as nice as the '70-D and is a little tougher date.
I am finding a lot more '68-P cents that are OK than I had believed. About one mint set coin in fifteen can be recovered.
This date in Gem or chBU is a good one.
I'm finding more and more buyers.
Ok then- don't.
I've had good results with hazy copper nickel myself but you're the clad king, so I guess I must have imagined it.
Yea soooo. Someone here on the forum once mentioned a watered down acetone. I swore to never use acetone again at least on copper. Maybe the soap and water would be a safe choice.
I either got real lucky or Eagle currently has a nice stock. As I only purchased one 1970 set. I might go back for more later this week.