@wondercoin said:
“I'm seeing a little weakening in price but with the run-up so sudden this is to be expected”
CK: I stopped buying. 😂
That suggests a very thin market indeed. 😂
@Wondercoin was joking of course but the prices are sharply higher in a still very thin market. 100 sets per day is nothing. If all the mint sets ever made still existed it would take 40 years to move them all at this rate. But the supply is far far thinner so replenishing inventory is much more difficult. Meanwhile the demand is still increasing undeterred by the higher prices. The problem with moderns has never been that they were too common and has always been a lack of demand. Now the demand is moving lots of coins at retail pricing even at much higher prices.
There just isn't enough supply for this to continue this way for long. While prices have escalated sharply it should be remembered that most of these sets are still available at only two or three times face value and some of the coins, like the quarters, have not really moved higher. Even if prices double again it makes the average quarter an 80c coin. How many times can prices double before collectors are forced out of the market?
Even the highest retail pricing on quarters is only around $3.50
What is going to happen when the mint sets are gone and there is no BU roll market? I still believe this will happen in the short term because the supply has been destroyed by time and total apathy that had coins being put into circulation.
@cladking said:
Those actually moving mint sets must be moving more since they are raising prices. Dave's has upped their price on the 1965, for instance, to $18.29!! This is hardly the highest price around but I have no doubt he's actually moving product.
I purchased several of these sets from the Mint in 1965 for around $4 per set. I eventually sold them, but if I had waited until today to sell them, I would have needed $34.73 per set just to break even (after adjusting for inflation)!
So anyone buying these sets for $18.29 today is obtaining them for the equivalent of slightly more than half of the price when they were issued.
Funny thing about the coins in that “special” 1965 Mint set. They are worth peanuts compared to the regular coins you could have bought for face value at the bank. Take the quarter - from that special mint set it sells for about 50 cents. But, the normal 1965 BU quarter from a simple bank roll sells for $3.00. I just bought an original bank wrapped roll of 1965 quarters from a board member last week. I couldn’t believe I was paying nearly 6x as much per coin as compared to the “special” quarters in the mint set!
CK- Was this a typo in the Greysheet?
Wondercoin
Please visit my website at www.wondercoins.com and my ebay auctions under my user name www.wondercoin.com.
Obviously it is becoming more difficult to find a coin (worthy of certifying) in mint sets dated prior to 1999 as time goes on.
So many sets have examined for such coins. To be sure, there are groups of sets that haven't been searched and should.
It can be a lot of work and mentally draining to go through large quantities of sets and find nothing. There are no guarantees.
I'm thinking my time spent ultimately would have been more profitable staying with the "bread and butter" coins instead of chasing the dream of the big hit.
@wondercoin said:
Funny thing about the coins in that “special” 1965 Mint set. They are worth peanuts compared to the regular coins you could have bought for face value at the bank. Take the quarter - from that special mint set it sells for about 50 cents. But, the normal 1965 BU quarter from a simple bank roll sells for $3.00. I just bought an original bank wrapped roll of 1965 quarters from a board member last week. I couldn’t believe I was paying nearly 6x as much per coin as compared to the “special” quarters in the mint set!
CK- Was this a typo in the Greysheet?
No. That high price for '65 and '67 quarters has been around for a long time.
Funny thing is that a lot of '65 quarters were set aside... ...a whole lot. But when the price never went up most of the rolls were just spent. Very few of the '67's were saved and a few of them got spent.
'65 quality tends to be awful. '67 ranges from even worse to pretty good.
Can we start acknowledging that any coin after WWII is a modern? How do the break downs look for obw rolls of silver Roosie, Franklin, and 90% Kennedy halves?
“Can we start acknowledging that any coin after WWII is a modern? How do the break downs look for obw rolls of silver Roosie, Franklin, and 90% Kennedy halves?”
We need a thread started by a board member named “SilverKing”. 😝
Wondercoin
Please visit my website at www.wondercoins.com and my ebay auctions under my user name www.wondercoin.com.
@cameonut2011 said:
Can we start acknowledging that any coin after WWII is a modern? How do the break downs look for obw rolls of silver Roosie, Franklin, and 90% Kennedy halves?
And what about mint sets from that era? Sets from 1959 to 1964 were issued in packaging similar to those of 1968 and later. The number of sets produced varied from 187,000 (1959) to slightly over a million (1964). Numerous sets were broken up for the silver value as well as for individual collections. How many sets remain intact after all these years?
@wondercoin said:
Coinscratchfever- If there ever was an underrated date in the MS Kennedy series, look no further than the 2000(d)! I can’t even begin to tell you how many man hours I personally spent (in the end) successfully getting a PCGS-MS67+ grade on this date for my collection. Not too surprisingly, ten or 15 years later, the coin I graded still remains pop 1/0! PCGS might be a touch forgiving on these D mint year 2000 MS67s just as they are with classic coins at times on key date series coins. PCGS gets to see plenty of MS67 P coins from 2000 as well as even MS68 quality P coins. When a half way decent D coin comes along every now and then a few get rewarded with the MS67 grade.
I think the '80-D is another dark horse since ~97% of them have shallow scrapes. For some reason the few that avoided being scraped tend to have unattractive surfaces and/ or weak strikes (especially unattractive surfaces). I got in the habit of saving almost anything without the scrapes unless they were ugly as well.
It's a real shame since there were some great strikes and very pristine coins that got scraped. It looks like they were damaged by the mint set handling equipment but this is mostly a guess. I have little experience with the '80-D in rolls.
That's '70-D, '80-D, and '00-D. But then the '90-D is none too common without scratching.
I think that the 1982 Kennedy halves are the real overlooked coins in the series. Everyone seems to want 1983's but not 1982's. I have been searching 2-3 boxes of half dollars a week since mid-March. There are a lot of 1983's in AU-Low unc. grades in circulation. But not nearly as many 1982's. 1982 Kennedys have much lower mintages then 1983's.
1982-P-10,891,000, 1982-D-13,140,102 1983-P-34,139,000 1983-D-32,472,244
The 1982's were not in mint sets, just like the 1983's.
I found a few rolls of 1983's, both P and D mints, but much fewer 1982's. 1982-P maybe a half roll of AU/BU.
As for the 1982-D's, I found only 2 nice keepable coins. I found more 1987's then 1982's. I live near the Philadelphia mint, so that may be the reason that I found more 1982-P's then D's.
Thus, from my personal hands-on experience, the 1982-D is by far the scarcest clad Kennedy half dollar to find in AU-BU condition.
@wondercoin said:
Coinscratchfever- If there ever was an underrated date in the MS Kennedy series, look no further than the 2000(d)! I can’t even begin to tell you how many man hours I personally spent (in the end) successfully getting a PCGS-MS67+ grade on this date for my collection. Not too surprisingly, ten or 15 years later, the coin I graded still remains pop 1/0! PCGS might be a touch forgiving on these D mint year 2000 MS67s just as they are with classic coins at times on key date series coins. PCGS gets to see plenty of MS67 P coins from 2000 as well as even MS68 quality P coins. When a half way decent D coin comes along every now and then a few get rewarded with the MS67 grade.
I think the '80-D is another dark horse since ~97% of them have shallow scrapes. For some reason the few that avoided being scraped tend to have unattractive surfaces and/ or weak strikes (especially unattractive surfaces). I got in the habit of saving almost anything without the scrapes unless they were ugly as well.
It's a real shame since there were some great strikes and very pristine coins that got scraped. It looks like they were damaged by the mint set handling equipment but this is mostly a guess. I have little experience with the '80-D in rolls.
That's '70-D, '80-D, and '00-D. But then the '90-D is none too common without scratching.
I think that the 1982 Kennedy halves are the real overlooked coins in the series. Everyone seems to want 1983's but not 1982's. I have been searching 2-3 boxes of half dollars a week since mid-March. There are a lot of 1983's in AU-Low unc. grades in circulation. But not nearly as many 1982's. 1982 Kennedys have much lower mintages then 1983's.
1982-P-10,891,000, 1982-D-13,140,102 1983-P-34,139,000 1983-D-32,472,244
The 1982's were not in mint sets, just like the 1983's.
I found a few rolls of 1983's, both P and D mints, but much fewer 1982's. 1982-P maybe a half roll of AU/BU.
As for the 1982-D's, I found only 2 nice keepable coins. I found more 1987's then 1982's. I live near the Philadelphia mint, so that may be the reason that I found more 1982-P's then D's.
Thus, from my personal hands-on experience, the 1982-D is by far the scarcest clad Kennedy half dollar to find in AU-BU condition.
It's a similar thing with the quarters though there's no real shortage of XF/ AU '82-P's. Numismatic News ran a series of articles about the scarcity of the '82 and '83 as BU's in '84/ '85 and large numbers were pulled out of circulation. Very few BU's were intercepted because in that era with a booming economy coins flowed right through the FED. But there were large numbers of AU's still around. I acquired a hoard of nearly 100 rolls from an eastern collector of just '82-P's so I know pretty much what these look like. There were five or six Uncs, 25 sliders, and a few hundred high end AU's. The rest were AU's and XF's with a very few high end VF's. The accumulator excluded only culls. The surprising thing about these coins is that only two or three were well made; good strikes from good dies.
This is where the '82-P is tough. Finding high quality examples in BU is almost impossible. You can find clean coins once in a while in the souvenir sets but there are no well made coins from this source.
The '83-P is tough as well because they tend to be scratched up but finding nice AU's is relatively easy.
I have a very few nice BU '82-P and D halfs and a few dozen nice attractive AU's but these (AU's) all came from the same source and I don't know how they were accumulated. They are typical coins other than being lightly worn with luster breaks. I've searched enough half rolls to appreciate how many of them are tough to find. I'm invariably surprised how much wear most of the coins have and how ubiquitous this wear is on many later dates.
People are finally starting to collect these coins and even I am seeing some surprises. Demand is as the winds of time and is the only thing that can separate the wheat from the chaff. If collectors demand nice attractive coins they will find many of them (like the '82-D half dollar) difficult in almost every grade.
@cameonut2011 said:
Can we start acknowledging that any coin after WWII is a modern? How do the break downs look for obw rolls of silver Roosie, Franklin, and 90% Kennedy halves?
And what about mint sets from that era? Sets from 1959 to 1964 were issued in packaging similar to those of 1968 and later. The number of sets produced varied from 187,000 (1959) to slightly over a million (1964). Numerous sets were broken up for the silver value as well as for individual collections. How many sets remain intact after all these years?
These sets are tough and have never been widely collected. Almost every single seller is always sold out of almost every single date even though prices are at a steep premium to the silver.
One of the reasons they've never been widely collected is they are just like the BU roll coins which exist in large quantity unlike the moderns which can't be found in rolls. While the older sets certainly have corrosion problems it's not nearly as widespread as with more modern sets. The older sets have been destroyed in large percentages but not nearly so large percentages as later dates and the coins from these destroyed sets mostly still exist. Older sets largely have a premium due to being older and scarcer but the coins are not scarce except for Gems and a few varieties. Modern sets sell at a steep discount to the coins in them. If the coins add up to $10 then the set tends to sell for $5. It's the reverse with older sets.
Even the most common older set is likely a little scarcer than the toughest later set but later sets are more likely to be worth their cost. If you can get older sets with nice envelopes and untarnished coins cheap they might be worth a flyer but the newer sets are already a steal. Just don't forget to stabilize the coins in the set before the tarnish becomes permanent.
I was hoping for some dramatic price increases in the raw moderns (mint sets) before bringing this back but I feel we are on the cusp now. Higher prices seem to have swamped the demand temporarily but this supply has been largely worked off and "sold out" signs are beginning to reappear. Wholesale prices especially seem to be lagging and highly resistant to increases but demand will change this and this time there won't be any overhang just waiting for a little higher prices.
People don't appreciate the scarcity of pristine early sets. Even under ideal storage conditions only a very few percent of the few survivors will be untarnished. Some sets are badly tarnished and unredeemable and almost every set has at least a few lightly damaged coins or, more likely, all the coins are lightly damaged. This applies to dates before 1980 especially. Later dates are often OK. Poorly stored sets are a mess and every single coin is often totally ruined.
The market is still being skewed because the demand is for sets instead of coins, or nice attractive coins. Wholesale prices of the coins is for nice coins. But many wholesalers are buying sets as they come. This causes them to set their bids much lower. This is likely much of the reason for the disparity between wholesale and retail prices. This will not continue. Either a two tier market will evolve or inferior sets will be severely discounted.
@CopperWire said:
Is that right? I have a dozen quarters I was planning to send out thinking it would be quick. A couple 2019 Ws and condition sensitive 2008 and 2012s.
@privatecoin said:
Sadly my modern economy order is still stuck in grading. My last trip to a shop, they were sold out of mint sets.
Yes. My order of 10 modern economy went into grading 9/21. Been there ever since.
Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value. Zero. Voltaire. Ebay coinbowlllc
@privatecoin said:
My last trip to a shop, they were sold out of mint sets.
Anecdotal evidence is my favorite but I'll try not to overweight this.
Shops often gather up every set they have to ship off and, no doubt, more have done this recently . But historically they restock almost immediately as there is a continual flow walking in the door.
Still, I suspect most of the ready stock, defined as inventory of coin shops, has already been sold into the higher prices. So now when retailers need 1969 mint sets they're going to have a lot of trouble finding them because very few of the older sets have walked in the door for many years now. Nobody noticed because there was no demand.
@CopperWire said:
Is that right? I have a dozen quarters I was planning to send out thinking it would be quick. A couple 2019 Ws and condition sensitive 2008 and 2012s.
@privatecoin said:
Sadly my modern economy order is still stuck in grading. My last trip to a shop, they were sold out of mint sets.
Yes. My order of 10 modern economy went into grading 9/21. Been there ever since.
@wondercoin said:
“Great news @wondercoin. It would be great to get your coins TrueViewed to share.
To move modern coins to the next level, it would be great to get a custom insert as well. Many classic coin collectors have them, like Simpson and Pogue.
For moderns, the only collection I know of with a custom insert is @DLHansen. It would be great to get some more to showcase moderns getting more popular. Given that you have the No-S Ike, you could use the Ike Bi-Centennial Bell & Moon for your logo ”
Zoins. That is a wonderful idea to showcase moderns, but, I have never placed a single coin I own in a personalized holder and have no plans to do so anytime soon. For what reason, if you think about it? When these landmark coins are eventually sold, the new buyer (especially when very wealthy) in most cases simply removes your name and replaces it solely with their name! And, in my view, in many cases, in total disrespect to the true collector who spent decades and decades building the greatest collection of “this or that”. Enough said on this subject.
Wondercoin.
It's okay if it's not for you.
Hopefully, other moderns collectors will want to showcase their names and pedigrees. It's great to mention pedigrees when thinking about great coins. I've seen you do the same with the Just Having Fun collection.
@cameonut2011 said:
Can we start acknowledging that any coin after WWII is a modern? How do the break downs look for obw rolls of silver Roosie, Franklin, and 90% Kennedy halves?
And what about mint sets from that era? Sets from 1959 to 1964 were issued in packaging similar to those of 1968 and later. The number of sets produced varied from 187,000 (1959) to slightly over a million (1964). Numerous sets were broken up for the silver value as well as for individual collections. How many sets remain intact after all these years?
This thread made for some very interesting reading.
I have all the mint sets from 1954 till date (including the premier proof sets and Prestige proof sets et al.) intact.
Sourced most of my coins for the Dansco from the LCS who was breaking up his sets.
But am truly in a dilemma as to what should be done with all these sets since the future prospects are being painted as sort of gloomy and bleak.
@CopperWire said:
Is that right? I have a dozen quarters I was planning to send out thinking it would be quick. A couple 2019 Ws and condition sensitive 2008 and 2012s.
@privatecoin said:
Sadly my modern economy order is still stuck in grading. My last trip to a shop, they were sold out of mint sets.
Yes. My order of 10 modern economy went into grading 9/21. Been there ever since.
Yes.
Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value. Zero. Voltaire. Ebay coinbowlllc
This thread made for some very interesting reading.
I have all the mint sets from 1954 till date (including the premier proof sets and Prestige proof sets et al.) intact.
Sourced most of my coins for the Dansco from the LCS who was breaking up his sets.
But am truly in a dilemma as to what should be done with all these sets since the future prospects are being painted as sort of gloomy and bleak.
The only things I'm sure of is that maintaining low humidity and steady temperature is best for these coins. The plastic ages and this closely correlates to the tarnish. A few things might help like leaving them in the packaging and storing the sets vertically with very little weight on top.
I think most of the '65 and '68 -'80 sets are already affected. Lots of people tell me their sets are just fine but I spot check them everywhere and they are not. If you really have pristine sets then it should be safe enough to just keep an eye on them and wait to cut them until the tarnish begins. This tarnish starts as very subtle and is removable 98% of the time when it first appears. It is only when the coins darken after several years that the percentage ruined begins soaring. Even the darkest sets will yield a few salvageable coins.
There are some specific dates that are most susceptible to permanent damage. The '68 dime, for instance, is atrocious but then most of these were ugly when they went into the sets. Many of them look like dull XF's when they come out of the acetone. It appears to be an artefact of their surfaces as this date tends to have a very uneven and porous looking surface.
A lot of BU rolls have gone bad as well. Mint set coins that were removed from the packaging and placed in tubes and holders are unaffected. I usually stabilized these with a soak in 91% isopropyl and these are the least likely to tarnish.
The coins are still OK right now but this won't be true in another several years. A lot of people will do nothing at all. Even owners of mint sets will neither clean the sets nor watch them.
I'm not certain what surprises me more; that the demand for moderns is still so shallow or that the very shallow demand is actually pushing the prices higher. Even the biggest mint set and BU single sellers are moving very few coins. Of course some of the new demand isn't as visible as it used to be because a lot more sets are being sold over the counter at coin shops than there used to be. A lot of dealers in the old days told me they rarely sold any sets over the counter and the few they did tended to be at Christmas time. Now day they are selling a lot more and often at bid or retail. This is curtailing the flow of sets to the wholesale market and might be part of the reason for rising prices.
Not that prices are rising right now but they look more like they are "firming". It's getting harder to find the coins at the new higher bids.
There are still no firm signs of how this will play out. At some point new collectors are going to obtain coins for their sets and they aren't going to accept low quality or tarnished coins. It appears that at this time there are more sets being started than there are being actively worked. I doubt collectors are going to throw in the towel because they can't find nice coins at current prices. Then again though try finding a nice chBU 1967 quarter at anywhere close to bid. Bid is in the $4 range but most of the ones seen are actually SMS and the few that are definitely not SMS and choice will be well over bid. The big retailers if they have this coin at all sell them for 7 to 20 dollars.
I believe the Redbook still lists it at $1 in MS-63. It wholesales at $155 a roll in MS-60.
You can find a few in XF/ AU since they were still around in 1997 when people started saving coins out of circulation again.
I picked up a 1996 $25 gold regular issue last week that I sent into grading; the dealer pointed to Dec. Greysheet but that is all based on MS69-70. I checked ebay where raw coins regularly have been going a little over common issues.
Anyone recognize this type of set? I’ve never seen a mint set quite like this one. I received it Yesterday from an auction on the bay, the P set looks typical, I guess the S’s are missing. Sadly the D set is internally broke allowing the coins to move around and scratch one another however the Quarter and dime might have survived. Looks pretty gem like to me - What say you?
Edit: those aren’t scratches on the quarter and dime but some sort of dusty corrosion.
Sorry but my photography skills are a work in progress. Here are more pics that show the spotting better. Not sure how much that would affect the grade. Maybe a good dipping is in order or maybe just an album coin?
@Cuprinkor said:
1969 Philadelphia quarter looks pretty nice in the photo.
I'll pull it tomorrow but they look pretty dull at least compared to the D's which have a blue toning and more luster.
In looking at the photo I just realized the P and S are together.
@Coinscratch said:
Anyone recognize this type of set? I’ve never seen a mint set quite like this one. I received it Yesterday from an auction on the bay, the P set looks typical, I guess the S’s are missing. Sadly the D set is internally broke allowing the coins to move around and scratch one another however the Quarter and dime might have survived. Looks pretty gem like to me - What say you?
Edit: those aren’t scratches on the quarter and dime but some sort of dusty corrosion.
I could be wrong but that set does not look like a government issue to me. I do not recall the mint making what they called "year sets".
Coinscratch:
From your photo the 69-P quarter appears brilliant, very well struck, and mark free. 69-P's are normally dull and your coin appears well above average. I like what I see.
@Cuprinkor said:
Coinscratch:
From your photo the 69-P quarter appears brilliant, very well struck, and mark free. 69-P's are normally dull and your coin appears well above average. I like what I see.
Well, it would only need to hit 65+ to cover grading & shipping. I'll pull it tonight after work and post some pics.
@Coinscratch said:
Anyone recognize this type of set? I’ve never seen a mint set quite like this one. I received it Yesterday from an auction on the bay, the P set looks typical, I guess the S’s are missing. Sadly the D set is internally broke allowing the coins to move around and scratch one another however the Quarter and dime might have survived. Looks pretty gem like to me - What say you?
I'm not sure, but I think this was the type of set sold in the mint gift shops.
Happy days are here again! Plus I don’t think they’re over anyway. I got these pretty cheap on the bay! I haven’t checked for varieties yet other than the two obvious type one Ikes.
This thread is like a novel and I hate books without pictures :-)
Winning bid $53.99
At conventions or year end Christmas parties when the mint guys got together. I bet those Denver guys talked a lot of smack to the Philly boys.
When it comes to quality.
@Coinscratch said:
Anyone recognize this type of set? I’ve never seen a mint set quite like this one. I received it Yesterday from an auction on the bay, the P set looks typical, I guess the S’s are missing. Sadly the D set is internally broke allowing the coins to move around and scratch one another however the Quarter and dime might have survived. Looks pretty gem like to me - What say you?
I'm not sure, but I think this was the type of set sold in the mint gift shops.
Actually, I would guess it was a private company. Coin World, fur example, did sets although those had their name on them as did US Mint souvenir sets.
The following quote from the OP uses face value as the base line.
@cladking said:
Today I saw a buy list for nice mint sets that listed some of the Ike years at $8 per set. This is more than a $4 premium to face value for the same sets that went for no premium just a year or two ago.
Up until last year it was pretty easy to find mint sets at back of bid. Indeed, you could buy a '75 set sell the Ikes and half dollars leaving the rest of the coins along with a $5 profit for free.
It's getting hard to find cheap mint sets any longer though many dealers haven't noticed the price increases. Start watching for increases in BU roll prices for dimes and quarters since buyers are getting tired of not getting any. I believe prices will have to go significantly higher for the rolls to start coming in.
In theory there are lots of nice better date BU dimes that you can buy for 12c apiece. In practice it's not so easy to find them. So far it hasn't mattered because demand is tepid and there were always cheap mint sets to cut. Things are still changing very fast.
@Coinscratch said:
Anyone recognize this type of set? I’ve never seen a mint set quite like this one. I received it Yesterday from an auction on the bay, the P set looks typical, I guess the S’s are missing. Sadly the D set is internally broke allowing the coins to move around and scratch one another however the Quarter and dime might have survived. Looks pretty gem like to me - What say you?
I've seen all of these sets from 1965 to 1969.
I never knew where they came from and always assumed the mint made the '70 mint set only half to get rid of the competition. Some of these sets here are extremely nice unlike any of the ones I've seen. I've seen a few of the coins that are pretty clean but strikes and dies are usually poor.
Several private manufacturers started making mint sets in 1982 and again the mint made a mint set only half dollar(s) in 1987 bringing it to a rapid end.
@Coinscratch said:
Happy days are here again! Plus I don’t think they’re over anyway. I got these pretty cheap on the bay! I haven’t checked for varieties yet other than the two obvious type one Ikes.
This thread is like a novel and I hate books without pictures :-)
Those are very gemmy '74-D and '78-D Ikes.
All the coins appear to be from regular mint sets.
I’m currently putting another order together and will include maybe 3 or 4 of these. I’ll post results in a couple of months.
Meanwhile I’ll try to limit my pics to gem only.
This post might not be best placed here but here's a little good news about mint sets for a change. I can now save nearly 95% of the coins in 1972 and later mint sets. Some of them take a lot more time, effort, and alcohol so aren't worth it but choice and Gem coins are certainly worth the effort to me. I still have some concerns but I believe they are completely stable after last drying.
Earlier issues, especially poorly stored sets, are somewhat more problematical. Some coins like '68 (P) dimes just don't want to look right and only about 30% can be saved. Gems are little better than typical Unc. I still have a lot of trouble with the 40% silver as well. Once these get spots they stay spotted.
I've also been finding a very few '68 (P) cents without carbon spots. Apparently the spots are related to storage conditions. I still stabilize any coin from a set and this goes many times over for cents and the '68.
These mint sets are going to be the last place to find moderns and they'll be gone in a few years. Collectors really need to tend to the '65 to '71 sets sooner rather than later.
A lot of modern collectors are interested in proofs and proof set so I should also mention these are not immune to problems. Even later date sets often have as high as 50% tarnished coins and these are far harder to clean and you'll be less successful. The 50% that aren't damaged are generally stable.
"Dire economic circumstances made it financially infeasible for many individuals to save rolls and bag quantities of new circulating 1982 coinage (a situation reflected especially among the “workhorse” denominations – dimes and quarters). "
The economy really wasn't that bad in 1982. It was bad enough that most mintages were down a little but Nobody was saving rolls and bags of dimes and quarters in 1981 either. They saved a few in '65, '66, and '67 but when it was found there was no demand most of these were spent and no future dimes and quarters were saved with the exception of the bicentennial issues. There were far more '82 and '83 quarters saved than other dates of the era but the aggregate number was quite small. Nobody ever imagined anyone would collect clads so very few were set aside.
When I bought my bag of 1982 quarters at the First National Bank of East Chicago the vault manager told me he called several of his cohorts at other banks and not one of them had ever heard of anyone wanting a bag of brand new quarters.
It was always very tough to secure rolls and bags in those days and I was often treated something like a leper. I usually had to settle for rolls or, if I was lucky, I picked up the rolled remainder of a freshly opened bag. There weren't even a half dozen entities in the country getting bags and selling them in the backs of the coin papers. Some years the sellers didn't even sell an entire bag. Quality of bag coins tends to be quite poor.
@cladking Finding an 82 or 83 quarter in MS67 is one of my quests. I thought this one had a nice look and threw it in an order just to see what would happen.
A tuition installment, 65.
I learned quite a bit from that particular order.
Comments
That suggests a very thin market indeed. 😂
@Wondercoin was joking of course but the prices are sharply higher in a still very thin market. 100 sets per day is nothing. If all the mint sets ever made still existed it would take 40 years to move them all at this rate. But the supply is far far thinner so replenishing inventory is much more difficult. Meanwhile the demand is still increasing undeterred by the higher prices. The problem with moderns has never been that they were too common and has always been a lack of demand. Now the demand is moving lots of coins at retail pricing even at much higher prices.
There just isn't enough supply for this to continue this way for long. While prices have escalated sharply it should be remembered that most of these sets are still available at only two or three times face value and some of the coins, like the quarters, have not really moved higher. Even if prices double again it makes the average quarter an 80c coin. How many times can prices double before collectors are forced out of the market?
Even the highest retail pricing on quarters is only around $3.50
What is going to happen when the mint sets are gone and there is no BU roll market? I still believe this will happen in the short term because the supply has been destroyed by time and total apathy that had coins being put into circulation.
What is going to happen when the mint sets are gone and there is no BU roll market?
Exactly what you and most everybody else wants to happen, the price goes up, The value of your MS 67 graded etc. etc. etc. goes through the roof.
I purchased several of these sets from the Mint in 1965 for around $4 per set. I eventually sold them, but if I had waited until today to sell them, I would have needed $34.73 per set just to break even (after adjusting for inflation)!
So anyone buying these sets for $18.29 today is obtaining them for the equivalent of slightly more than half of the price when they were issued.
My Adolph A. Weinman signature
Funny thing about the coins in that “special” 1965 Mint set. They are worth peanuts compared to the regular coins you could have bought for face value at the bank. Take the quarter - from that special mint set it sells for about 50 cents. But, the normal 1965 BU quarter from a simple bank roll sells for $3.00. I just bought an original bank wrapped roll of 1965 quarters from a board member last week. I couldn’t believe I was paying nearly 6x as much per coin as compared to the “special” quarters in the mint set!
CK- Was this a typo in the Greysheet?
Wondercoin
Obviously it is becoming more difficult to find a coin (worthy of certifying) in mint sets dated prior to 1999 as time goes on.
So many sets have examined for such coins. To be sure, there are groups of sets that haven't been searched and should.
It can be a lot of work and mentally draining to go through large quantities of sets and find nothing. There are no guarantees.
I'm thinking my time spent ultimately would have been more profitable staying with the "bread and butter" coins instead of chasing the dream of the big hit.
No. That high price for '65 and '67 quarters has been around for a long time.
Funny thing is that a lot of '65 quarters were set aside... ...a whole lot. But when the price never went up most of the rolls were just spent. Very few of the '67's were saved and a few of them got spent.
'65 quality tends to be awful. '67 ranges from even worse to pretty good.
Can we start acknowledging that any coin after WWII is a modern? How do the break downs look for obw rolls of silver Roosie, Franklin, and 90% Kennedy halves?
How about obw Ikes?
“Can we start acknowledging that any coin after WWII is a modern? How do the break downs look for obw rolls of silver Roosie, Franklin, and 90% Kennedy halves?”
We need a thread started by a board member named “SilverKing”. 😝
Wondercoin
And what about mint sets from that era? Sets from 1959 to 1964 were issued in packaging similar to those of 1968 and later. The number of sets produced varied from 187,000 (1959) to slightly over a million (1964). Numerous sets were broken up for the silver value as well as for individual collections. How many sets remain intact after all these years?
My Adolph A. Weinman signature
I think that the 1982 Kennedy halves are the real overlooked coins in the series. Everyone seems to want 1983's but not 1982's. I have been searching 2-3 boxes of half dollars a week since mid-March. There are a lot of 1983's in AU-Low unc. grades in circulation. But not nearly as many 1982's. 1982 Kennedys have much lower mintages then 1983's.
1982-P-10,891,000, 1982-D-13,140,102 1983-P-34,139,000 1983-D-32,472,244
The 1982's were not in mint sets, just like the 1983's.
I found a few rolls of 1983's, both P and D mints, but much fewer 1982's. 1982-P maybe a half roll of AU/BU.
As for the 1982-D's, I found only 2 nice keepable coins. I found more 1987's then 1982's. I live near the Philadelphia mint, so that may be the reason that I found more 1982-P's then D's.
Thus, from my personal hands-on experience, the 1982-D is by far the scarcest clad Kennedy half dollar to find in AU-BU condition.
It's a similar thing with the quarters though there's no real shortage of XF/ AU '82-P's. Numismatic News ran a series of articles about the scarcity of the '82 and '83 as BU's in '84/ '85 and large numbers were pulled out of circulation. Very few BU's were intercepted because in that era with a booming economy coins flowed right through the FED. But there were large numbers of AU's still around. I acquired a hoard of nearly 100 rolls from an eastern collector of just '82-P's so I know pretty much what these look like. There were five or six Uncs, 25 sliders, and a few hundred high end AU's. The rest were AU's and XF's with a very few high end VF's. The accumulator excluded only culls. The surprising thing about these coins is that only two or three were well made; good strikes from good dies.
This is where the '82-P is tough. Finding high quality examples in BU is almost impossible. You can find clean coins once in a while in the souvenir sets but there are no well made coins from this source.
The '83-P is tough as well because they tend to be scratched up but finding nice AU's is relatively easy.
I have a very few nice BU '82-P and D halfs and a few dozen nice attractive AU's but these (AU's) all came from the same source and I don't know how they were accumulated. They are typical coins other than being lightly worn with luster breaks. I've searched enough half rolls to appreciate how many of them are tough to find. I'm invariably surprised how much wear most of the coins have and how ubiquitous this wear is on many later dates.
People are finally starting to collect these coins and even I am seeing some surprises. Demand is as the winds of time and is the only thing that can separate the wheat from the chaff. If collectors demand nice attractive coins they will find many of them (like the '82-D half dollar) difficult in almost every grade.
These sets are tough and have never been widely collected. Almost every single seller is always sold out of almost every single date even though prices are at a steep premium to the silver.
One of the reasons they've never been widely collected is they are just like the BU roll coins which exist in large quantity unlike the moderns which can't be found in rolls. While the older sets certainly have corrosion problems it's not nearly as widespread as with more modern sets. The older sets have been destroyed in large percentages but not nearly so large percentages as later dates and the coins from these destroyed sets mostly still exist. Older sets largely have a premium due to being older and scarcer but the coins are not scarce except for Gems and a few varieties. Modern sets sell at a steep discount to the coins in them. If the coins add up to $10 then the set tends to sell for $5. It's the reverse with older sets.
Even the most common older set is likely a little scarcer than the toughest later set but later sets are more likely to be worth their cost. If you can get older sets with nice envelopes and untarnished coins cheap they might be worth a flyer but the newer sets are already a steal. Just don't forget to stabilize the coins in the set before the tarnish becomes permanent.
I was hoping for some dramatic price increases in the raw moderns (mint sets) before bringing this back but I feel we are on the cusp now. Higher prices seem to have swamped the demand temporarily but this supply has been largely worked off and "sold out" signs are beginning to reappear. Wholesale prices especially seem to be lagging and highly resistant to increases but demand will change this and this time there won't be any overhang just waiting for a little higher prices.
People don't appreciate the scarcity of pristine early sets. Even under ideal storage conditions only a very few percent of the few survivors will be untarnished. Some sets are badly tarnished and unredeemable and almost every set has at least a few lightly damaged coins or, more likely, all the coins are lightly damaged. This applies to dates before 1980 especially. Later dates are often OK. Poorly stored sets are a mess and every single coin is often totally ruined.
The market is still being skewed because the demand is for sets instead of coins, or nice attractive coins. Wholesale prices of the coins is for nice coins. But many wholesalers are buying sets as they come. This causes them to set their bids much lower. This is likely much of the reason for the disparity between wholesale and retail prices. This will not continue. Either a two tier market will evolve or inferior sets will be severely discounted.
Sadly my modern economy order is still stuck in grading. My last trip to a shop, they were sold out of mint sets.
Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value. Zero. Voltaire. Ebay coinbowlllc
Is that right? I have a dozen quarters I was planning to send out thinking it would be quick. A couple 2019 Ws and condition sensitive 2008 and 2012s.
Yes. My order of 10 modern economy went into grading 9/21. Been there ever since.
Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value. Zero. Voltaire. Ebay coinbowlllc
Anecdotal evidence is my favorite but I'll try not to overweight this.
Shops often gather up every set they have to ship off and, no doubt, more have done this recently . But historically they restock almost immediately as there is a continual flow walking in the door.
Still, I suspect most of the ready stock, defined as inventory of coin shops, has already been sold into the higher prices. So now when retailers need 1969 mint sets they're going to have a lot of trouble finding them because very few of the older sets have walked in the door for many years now. Nobody noticed because there was no demand.
did you order photos too?
It's okay if it's not for you.
Hopefully, other moderns collectors will want to showcase their names and pedigrees. It's great to mention pedigrees when thinking about great coins. I've seen you do the same with the Just Having Fun collection.
This thread made for some very interesting reading.
I have all the mint sets from 1954 till date (including the premier proof sets and Prestige proof sets et al.) intact.
Sourced most of my coins for the Dansco from the LCS who was breaking up his sets.
But am truly in a dilemma as to what should be done with all these sets since the future prospects are being painted as sort of gloomy and bleak.
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/u-s-coins/quarters/PCGS-2020-quarter-quest/album/247091
Yes.
Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value. Zero. Voltaire. Ebay coinbowlllc
The only things I'm sure of is that maintaining low humidity and steady temperature is best for these coins. The plastic ages and this closely correlates to the tarnish. A few things might help like leaving them in the packaging and storing the sets vertically with very little weight on top.
I think most of the '65 and '68 -'80 sets are already affected. Lots of people tell me their sets are just fine but I spot check them everywhere and they are not. If you really have pristine sets then it should be safe enough to just keep an eye on them and wait to cut them until the tarnish begins. This tarnish starts as very subtle and is removable 98% of the time when it first appears. It is only when the coins darken after several years that the percentage ruined begins soaring. Even the darkest sets will yield a few salvageable coins.
There are some specific dates that are most susceptible to permanent damage. The '68 dime, for instance, is atrocious but then most of these were ugly when they went into the sets. Many of them look like dull XF's when they come out of the acetone. It appears to be an artefact of their surfaces as this date tends to have a very uneven and porous looking surface.
A lot of BU rolls have gone bad as well. Mint set coins that were removed from the packaging and placed in tubes and holders are unaffected. I usually stabilized these with a soak in 91% isopropyl and these are the least likely to tarnish.
The coins are still OK right now but this won't be true in another several years. A lot of people will do nothing at all. Even owners of mint sets will neither clean the sets nor watch them.
I'm not certain what surprises me more; that the demand for moderns is still so shallow or that the very shallow demand is actually pushing the prices higher. Even the biggest mint set and BU single sellers are moving very few coins. Of course some of the new demand isn't as visible as it used to be because a lot more sets are being sold over the counter at coin shops than there used to be. A lot of dealers in the old days told me they rarely sold any sets over the counter and the few they did tended to be at Christmas time. Now day they are selling a lot more and often at bid or retail. This is curtailing the flow of sets to the wholesale market and might be part of the reason for rising prices.
Not that prices are rising right now but they look more like they are "firming". It's getting harder to find the coins at the new higher bids.
There are still no firm signs of how this will play out. At some point new collectors are going to obtain coins for their sets and they aren't going to accept low quality or tarnished coins. It appears that at this time there are more sets being started than there are being actively worked. I doubt collectors are going to throw in the towel because they can't find nice coins at current prices. Then again though try finding a nice chBU 1967 quarter at anywhere close to bid. Bid is in the $4 range but most of the ones seen are actually SMS and the few that are definitely not SMS and choice will be well over bid. The big retailers if they have this coin at all sell them for 7 to 20 dollars.
I believe the Redbook still lists it at $1 in MS-63. It wholesales at $155 a roll in MS-60.
You can find a few in XF/ AU since they were still around in 1997 when people started saving coins out of circulation again.
I picked up a 1996 $25 gold regular issue last week that I sent into grading; the dealer pointed to Dec. Greysheet but that is all based on MS69-70. I checked ebay where raw coins regularly have been going a little over common issues.
Anyone recognize this type of set? I’ve never seen a mint set quite like this one. I received it Yesterday from an auction on the bay, the P set looks typical, I guess the S’s are missing. Sadly the D set is internally broke allowing the coins to move around and scratch one another however the Quarter and dime might have survived. Looks pretty gem like to me - What say you?
Edit: those aren’t scratches on the quarter and dime but some sort of dusty corrosion.
Sorry but my photography skills are a work in progress. Here are more pics that show the spotting better. Not sure how much that would affect the grade. Maybe a good dipping is in order or maybe just an album coin?
1969 Philadelphia quarter looks pretty nice in the photo.
I'll pull it tomorrow but they look pretty dull at least compared to the D's which have a blue toning and more luster.
In looking at the photo I just realized the P and S are together.
I could be wrong but that set does not look like a government issue to me. I do not recall the mint making what they called "year sets".
Coinscratch:
From your photo the 69-P quarter appears brilliant, very well struck, and mark free. 69-P's are normally dull and your coin appears well above average. I like what I see.
Well, it would only need to hit 65+ to cover grading & shipping. I'll pull it tonight after work and post some pics.
The more info, the better.
I'm not sure, but I think this was the type of set sold in the mint gift shops.
The Philly quarter really isn’t worth shooting, the cell pics can lie as it is no better than 64. The D is another story.
Happy days are here again! Plus I don’t think they’re over anyway. I got these pretty cheap on the bay! I haven’t checked for varieties yet other than the two obvious type one Ikes.
This thread is like a novel and I hate books without pictures :-)
Define cheap?
Winning bid $53.99
At conventions or year end Christmas parties when the mint guys got together. I bet those Denver guys talked a lot of smack to the Philly boys.
When it comes to quality.
Actually, I would guess it was a private company. Coin World, fur example, did sets although those had their name on them as did US Mint souvenir sets.
Face value?
The following quote from the OP uses face value as the base line.
Yes, that's cheap.
Up until last year it was pretty easy to find mint sets at back of bid. Indeed, you could buy a '75 set sell the Ikes and half dollars leaving the rest of the coins along with a $5 profit for free.
It's getting hard to find cheap mint sets any longer though many dealers haven't noticed the price increases. Start watching for increases in BU roll prices for dimes and quarters since buyers are getting tired of not getting any. I believe prices will have to go significantly higher for the rolls to start coming in.
In theory there are lots of nice better date BU dimes that you can buy for 12c apiece. In practice it's not so easy to find them. So far it hasn't mattered because demand is tepid and there were always cheap mint sets to cut. Things are still changing very fast.
I've seen all of these sets from 1965 to 1969.
I never knew where they came from and always assumed the mint made the '70 mint set only half to get rid of the competition. Some of these sets here are extremely nice unlike any of the ones I've seen. I've seen a few of the coins that are pretty clean but strikes and dies are usually poor.
Several private manufacturers started making mint sets in 1982 and again the mint made a mint set only half dollar(s) in 1987 bringing it to a rapid end.
Those are very gemmy '74-D and '78-D Ikes.
All the coins appear to be from regular mint sets.
I’m currently putting another order together and will include maybe 3 or 4 of these. I’ll post results in a couple of months.
Meanwhile I’ll try to limit my pics to gem only.
This post might not be best placed here but here's a little good news about mint sets for a change. I can now save nearly 95% of the coins in 1972 and later mint sets. Some of them take a lot more time, effort, and alcohol so aren't worth it but choice and Gem coins are certainly worth the effort to me. I still have some concerns but I believe they are completely stable after last drying.
Earlier issues, especially poorly stored sets, are somewhat more problematical. Some coins like '68 (P) dimes just don't want to look right and only about 30% can be saved. Gems are little better than typical Unc. I still have a lot of trouble with the 40% silver as well. Once these get spots they stay spotted.
I've also been finding a very few '68 (P) cents without carbon spots. Apparently the spots are related to storage conditions. I still stabilize any coin from a set and this goes many times over for cents and the '68.
These mint sets are going to be the last place to find moderns and they'll be gone in a few years. Collectors really need to tend to the '65 to '71 sets sooner rather than later.
A lot of modern collectors are interested in proofs and proof set so I should also mention these are not immune to problems. Even later date sets often have as high as 50% tarnished coins and these are far harder to clean and you'll be less successful. The 50% that aren't damaged are generally stable.
https://coins.thefuntimesguide.com/rare_uncirculated_coins/
https://www.greysheet.com/news/story/1982-coinage-keeps-collectors-on-their-toes
Souvenir Mint Sets had the Special "Bronze" Mint Medal unlike the plastic token as seen in below set.
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/u-s-coins/quarters/PCGS-2020-quarter-quest/album/247091
"Dire economic circumstances made it financially infeasible for many individuals to save rolls and bag quantities of new circulating 1982 coinage (a situation reflected especially among the “workhorse” denominations – dimes and quarters). "
The economy really wasn't that bad in 1982. It was bad enough that most mintages were down a little but Nobody was saving rolls and bags of dimes and quarters in 1981 either. They saved a few in '65, '66, and '67 but when it was found there was no demand most of these were spent and no future dimes and quarters were saved with the exception of the bicentennial issues. There were far more '82 and '83 quarters saved than other dates of the era but the aggregate number was quite small. Nobody ever imagined anyone would collect clads so very few were set aside.
When I bought my bag of 1982 quarters at the First National Bank of East Chicago the vault manager told me he called several of his cohorts at other banks and not one of them had ever heard of anyone wanting a bag of brand new quarters.
It was always very tough to secure rolls and bags in those days and I was often treated something like a leper. I usually had to settle for rolls or, if I was lucky, I picked up the rolled remainder of a freshly opened bag. There weren't even a half dozen entities in the country getting bags and selling them in the backs of the coin papers. Some years the sellers didn't even sell an entire bag. Quality of bag coins tends to be quite poor.
@cladking Finding an 82 or 83 quarter in MS67 is one of my quests. I thought this one had a nice look and threw it in an order just to see what would happen.
A tuition installment, 65.
I learned quite a bit from that particular order.