@MasonG said:
If buyers won't pay what it costs to get the coins into plastic, there really isn't demand, is there?
edited to add... Well, there is demand, just no supply. And therefore, no market. Demand at a price so low that nobody will provide supply is still demand, but it's pretty much irrelevant,
Try to put together a set of clad Washington quarters in AU. It's impossible. Lol
I also just don't share cladking's enthusiasm for future demand. There may be 40,000 collectors, but 35,000 may be roll hunters who won't pay more than $1 for anything.
I’m not bullish on clad either, but I’m sure people thought the same of Barber halves. Who would have thought that a coin with a woman that ugly would ever become mainstream and collectible?
How many of these will be found before the quarters are retired or the last '72-D is worn away or lost?
There were 311 million 1972-D quarters minted. It seems unlikely to me that 310.9 million of them will disappear.
Yes, take a look at Bailey's album above. I infer that there are a lot more collections out there than is evident since the price doesn't provide much motivation to sell. It won't change the economics if 99%+ are worn or eventually destroyed. It's only in comparison to 1933-1964 classics that the supply either is or might seem "low".
I have looked at the TPG data across many world coin series. A good number even though presumably in low proportion have counts in better grades that are a lot higher than collectors would ever expect. And most instances, there are likely more outside of a holder than in one.
Aside from current mint issues, there is no "coin warehouse" dealers can order whatever they desire from. They acquire the coins they sell from various sources as best they can to stock the coins their customers want today. They aren't going to stock coins in the hopes that customers might, some day in the future, materialize and ask for them.
Actually there is.
this is one of the chief functions of the wholesalers. I don't know what kind of supply they keep now days but back when it was easy to pick up a few dozen 1972 mint sets at a show or a shop they kept only a few hundred of each. They would easily have kept more but the flow was and still is one directional; toward the wholesalers. They could easily beef up their supply by not cutting sets but there was simply no demand for them.
Ok- so the gems you seem to be worried everybody is overlooking don't exist. What's the problem again?
Why do you think I'm "worried about Gems". What I'm worried about is only a small percentage of mint set coins are well made and mark free. Nice attractive BU mercury dimes are the norm. Nice attractive BU clad is the exception. Now the few that are left are corroding away because they are being neglected.
I'm concerned that there aren't enough for a mass market already and if this persists another decade there won't be enough for a niche market. I'm concerned that a lot of great coins are being destroyed through neglect and that pristine sets are suddenly demanding a premium and still people don't care about the situation.
No. The wholesale price on 1972-D quarters in BU is 40c. To get this you'll need to remove every single tarnished piece and all the poorly made and damaged coin. You must leave must leave in the MS-65's if you want to sell them easily.
I haven't seen a '72 in better than VF condition in five years. I'm a tough grader but if you think you can find nice attractive specimens in high grade... ...well, you will not.
@cladking said:
What I'm worried about is only a small percentage of mint set coins are well made and mark free.
So which is it- is there a coin warehouse where dealers can order well made and mark free moderns, or is there not? You seem to be arguing in favor of both points.
How many of these will be found before the quarters are retired or the last '72-D is worn away or lost?
There were 311 million 1972-D quarters minted. It seems unlikely to me that 310.9 million of them will disappear.
They don't have to disappear. It's been 50 years. What percentage of them have worn down below AU? Have you seen how many slick SLQs and Barber Quarters there are?
I don't know why the generally wear of the coins would be substantially different, but with the clads the starting number is just much much larger. If anything, my guess would be that Barbers saw more service and, on average, received more wear. The clads also had way more mint sets. I agree that the census rarities will be valuable, but a XF clad quarter will always be worth $.25.
I have an old Whitman Bookshelf album of the copper-nickel dates in Mint State from 1965 thru 1973. Most look like they'd be MS64 or better with a dip.
The highest bid in the country I see right now is $9 for this set. The set contains $3.83 of face value. Hence, the premium to face value is a mere $5.17 over the past 47 years. The cost on the set from the US Mint in 1974 I believe was $6.00. If the “premium” went “up 20 fold virtually overnight” that means the premium was about 25 cents for 46 years!! But, the Mint charged a premium of $2.17 back in 1974! 😝
Since 2008 the premium on a '74 mint set at wholesale has varied between about -20c and 20c. Before covid it was was 20c. Now it's over $4.
edited to add... I just raised my bid to $9.25 for this set to become the new high buyer in the land. It can’t underperform the S&P forever! Can it? 😂
P.S. so far in the random test starting this week, I bought:
(4) 1969 “fresh” mint sets
(6) 1970 “fresh” mint sets
(0) 1996 “fresh” mint sets
Tossed in the 1970 date just to make the comparison even more interesting. See a previous posting above of mine for context.
Interesting.
A lot of the big coin shops used to keep a 100 or more of each date in stock and none of the coins were tarnished. It might take me a couple hours to look through all of them.
If those sets still exist where are they now? If those sets still exist then why were the dumpsters at the wholesalers full of mint and proof set packaging?
The sets are gone and the few survivors are tarnished.
The answer to "what happens to all these coins" was always the same; they went to jobbers and to build sets that mostly were sold to the general public but many were sold by ads in the numismatic press as well. I doubt there are any really massive hoards and these will tend to be tarnished because most people kept them in the plastic. This is not and never was a question of supply because many moderns were scarce from the year they were minted and still have a low price. This is about demand and the fact that it is outstripping supply.
@cladking said:
Why do you think I'm "worried about Gems".
I don't know- maybe because...
@cladking said:
I'm concerned that there aren't enough for a mass market already and if this persists another decade there won't be enough for a niche market. I'm concerned that a lot of great coins are being destroyed through neglect and that pristine sets are suddenly demanding a premium and still people don't care about the situation.
@cladking said:
Why do you think I'm "worried about Gems".
I don't know- maybe because...
@cladking said:
I'm concerned that there aren't enough for a mass market already and if this persists another decade there won't be enough for a niche market. I'm concerned that a lot of great coins are being destroyed through neglect and that pristine sets are suddenly demanding a premium and still people don't care about the situation.
I am referring to clads, especially clad quarters. I am talking about "raw moderns" which is the raw material from which collections are built. There are really nice specimens all the way down to MS-63 and even lower grades aren't always ugly. I'm talking about ANY modern that a knowledgeable collector could be proud to have in a collection. This would include about 10% of the roll coins even though there are almost no roll coins and about 30% of mint set coins. Due to rampant tarnish that 30% number can be far lower.
This isn't about $1000 coins. It's more about a $5 '72-D in MS-66.
I don't know why the generally wear of the coins would be substantially different, but with the clads the starting number is just much much larger. If anything, my guess would be that Barbers saw more service and, on average, received more wear. The clads also had way more mint sets. I agree that the census rarities will be valuable, but a XF clad quarter will always be worth $.25.
Clad coins are lighter and far harder than silver. The light weight reduces wear and the durability of the metal reduces it more. A 1965 quarter has seen far more use than any barber quarter. New quarters don't circulate nearly so rapidly as the early clads but still take a beating in a coin counter about every other day. Quarters used to be real money and were spent over and over. Now they're like a token to keep track of change. They circulate briefly and then get tossed in a change jar for a few months.
Perhaps a larger difference is men used to keep coins in their pockets and most men did physical labor. This caused a nice even wear rather than the dings that quarters get now days. A coin could get a great deal of wear in a single day. This is quite unusual now days since there is very little physical work and people don't carry change. Back in 1965 there was still a workforce carrying change.
“Since 2008 the premium on a '74 mint set at wholesale has varied between about -20c and 20c. Before covid it was was 20c. Now it's over $4.”
Well, not exactly.
The Grey Sheet for April, 2019 (pre-Covid) was $2.00/coin wholesale bid for 1974 and 1974-D Ikes. So, just those 2 coins alone from the 1974 Mint Set enjoyed a combined $2 premium right there. On top of that, the 1974 50C each had a wholesale bid of $18/roll back then- another 80 cents of premium for just those 2 coins. That’s $2.80 in premium without even putting a premium value on the cents, nickels, dimes and quarters from the set (and the 74-S cents even back then were 13x face)!
So, as you see, the only thing that has really happened in the past 2 years is that the “sheet” has fixed the internal inconsistencies that existed when the set price was a complete disconnect to the individual prices set out on the coins within the set. You see this CK?
Just my 2 cents.
Wondercoin
Please visit my website at www.wondercoins.com and my ebay auctions under my user name www.wondercoin.com.
Almost every one of those is apparently a handpicked mint set coin. There are only a couple substandard coins and they didn't come from mint sets though one might have been a souvenir set with a mintage of 20,000.
@koynekwest said:
You say most remaining examples are "tarnished." Could this tarnish be removed with a dip?
I've been working on exactly this.
I recently found an "easy" way to clean them but it is not as effective as my "regular" means which is a solution of mostly "91% isopropyl alcohol", about one quarter acetone, and a splash of either denatured or "80% ethyl alcohol". This will restore about half of the bad dates and up to 90% of the good dates.
My new method is to use the easy means first and then pull out the ones that are nice enough to bother with and likely to clean up in the solution.
Nickels are better, pennies are worse, and 40% half dollars are hit and miss but generally worse.
The big problem is that those which don't clean up are the ones that have been tarnished the longest. If people continue to take these coins for granted it will be too late at some point to save them. Also it's a nearly foregone conclusion that more dates will be affected over time.
Barring increased demand these coins are going to be lost to future generations.
I intend to dip the ones I have. They've been unattractively toned for many years. I use Tarnex so I'll try it on the '72s and '73's first and if that works I'll do the rest.
@cladking said:
This will restore about half of the bad dates and up to 90% of the good dates.
Perhaps I should warn collectors and would-be dealers that restoring proof coins is not so easy and some dates have close to a 0% restoration rate. It's also difficult to see the haze through the plastic. They look slightly "toned" or just a little dark but when you open them up they can have a bad haze.
Fortunately I'm pretty much done with my proof sets.
The Grey Sheet for April, 2019 (pre-Covid) was $2.00/coin wholesale bid for 1974 and 1974-D Ikes. So, just those 2 coins alone from the 1974 Mint Set enjoyed a combined $2 premium right there. On top of that, the 1974 50C each had a wholesale bid of $18/roll back then- another 80 cents of premium for just those 2 coins. That’s $2.80 in premium without even putting a premium value on the cents, nickels, dimes and quarters from the set (and the 74-S cents even back then were 13x face)!
So, as you see, the only thing that has really happened in the past 2 years is that the “sheet” has fixed the internal inconsistencies that existed when the set price was a complete disconnect to the individual prices set out on the coins within the set. You see this CK?
Just my 2 cents.
I don't consider BU rolls from mint sets to be "raw moderns". They are very highly processed moderns. While the average quality of these is extremely good and higher than average mint set quality almost every single roll will contain no high grade Gems and no varieties. The wholesalers who assemble most of these rolls pick out the Gems and varieties but they also toss out large numbers of culls. This is why you see so many proof and mint set coins in circulation; they are culls. A few are spent by collectors who just didn't want to bother with the rest of the set they bought to crack out the half dollar but most are hauled to the bank by wholesalers.
It's been highly profitable to bust up mint sets for years now. But the raw material (the '74 mint set) could be had for $4 which is a mere 17c premium. What will happen to the prices of tarnished sets if the choice ones are now selling for $8? I don't know but I expect that demand is going to continue to outstrip supply going forward.
Some of those 1974 Mint sets contain the 1974-D DDO 50c. Those used to be easy to find-I cherried 13 sets with the DDO half from a single source a few years back. Most sets have been checked now.
@wondercoin said:
“Since 2008 the premium on a '74 mint set at wholesale has varied between about -20c and 20c. Before covid it was was 20c. Now it's over $4.”
Well, not exactly.
The Grey Sheet for April, 2019 (pre-Covid) was $2.00/coin wholesale bid for 1974 and 1974-D Ikes. So, just those 2 coins alone from the 1974 Mint Set enjoyed a combined $2 premium right there. On top of that, the 1974 50C each had a wholesale bid of $18/roll back then- another 80 cents of premium for just those 2 coins. That’s $2.80 in premium without even putting a premium value on the cents, nickels, dimes and quarters from the set (and the 74-S cents even back then were 13x face)!
So, as you see, the only thing that has really happened in the past 2 years is that the “sheet” has fixed the internal inconsistencies that existed when the set price was a complete disconnect to the individual prices set out on the coins within the set. You see this CK?
A large part "the premium" for singles is "handling" ... you know, sticking the coin in a 2x2, writing the date and price, and waiting, sometimes years, for a buyer. 🤔
I think the 2021 Crossing the Delaware has spurred interest in the clad series 65-98. Similar to the excitement around Morgan and Peace Dollars this year. Those of us who grew up after silver was removed from circulation have an affinity for this series.
Any argument that the rolls are inferior quality to the mint sets only makes my point even stronger. If the inferior rolls had a $3-$4 premium, then the mint sets never really had a 20 cent premium. Perhaps to uneducated classic coin sellers who don’t give a second thought to these sleeper modern coins they had a 20 cent premium. But, to the educated modern hunter, they were always worth buying at “ask” or higher. Now, the price of the set has caught up with the price of the coins in the set. That good progress. But, it not anything to get terribly excited about. And it doesn’t deter me (as a hunter) one bit that has occurred. Again, simply an unjustified inconsistency has been rectified.
Wondercoin
Please visit my website at www.wondercoins.com and my ebay auctions under my user name www.wondercoin.com.
You cannot compare silver coin wear to clad coin wear. Clad coins are much tougher. After over 50 years in circulation, most clad coins dated in the 60's are F or better from my viewpoint. I search bank rolls a lot and I have never found a clad coin below vg by actual wear in circulation. Even the oldest dated clad coins grade vf or better most of the time. I am not talking about damaged coins, or messed with coins, just coins with regular circulation wear. There may be some, but I have not found one yet.
@rec78 said:
You cannot compare silver coin wear to clad coin wear. Clad coins are much tougher. After over 50 years in circulation, most clad coins dated in the 60's are F or better from my viewpoint. I search bank rolls a lot and I have never found a clad coin below vg by actual wear in circulation. Even the oldest dated clad coins grade vf or better most of the time. I am not talking about damaged coins, or messed with coins, just coins with regular circulation wear. There may be some, but I have not found one yet.
And Fine is way below the grade we were talking about.
Almost every one of those is apparently a handpicked mint set coin. There are only a couple substandard coins and they didn't come from mint sets though one might have been a souvenir set with a mintage of 20,000.
Almost every one of those is apparently a handpicked mint set coin. There are only a couple substandard coins and they didn't come from mint sets though one might have been a souvenir set with a mintage of 20,000.
Are these the kind of coins nobody is saving?
Not nobody. But the OP is right, the attrition is real. I buy UNC clad sets all the time in estates. Unless the coins are exceptional, and they rarely are, I dump them in the Coinstar. It really is a catch-22. No dealer is going to save hundreds of UNC clad coins unless there is a market that makes it worthwhile but, to Cladking's point, it is hard for the market to develop when there are no coins. The result is that anyone looking for UNC early clad coins gets them from Mint sets, and the attrition continues.
Now, that doesn't mean that there will ever be a problem here. It's quite possible that no one ever wants more of these coins than are in plastic already. But he's not wrong that there is an ongoing attrition problem with early clad coinage.
This may seem a bit of a leap, but coin collecting was not common before the mid-1800s. Isn't the limited number of gem early large cents a result of this? Few people saved them to collect, so they just kept circulating until they were all well worn.
There is a definite connection between survivorship and collecting interest. Things like commemoratives survive in large numbers in Gem Unc because people save them and don't spend them. On the flip side, clad coins don't survive in large numbers because people spend them and don't save them....except state quarters...we need to dump more of those in Coinstars.
Not nobody. But the OP is right, the attrition is real. I buy UNC clad sets all the time in estates. Unless the coins are exceptional, and they rarely are, I dump them in the Coinstar. It really is a catch-22. No dealer is going to save hundreds of UNC clad coins unless there is a market that makes it worthwhile but, to Cladking's point, it is hard for the market to develop when there are no coins. The result is that anyone looking for UNC early clad coins gets them from Mint sets, and the attrition continues.
Now, that doesn't mean that there will ever be a problem here. It's quite possible that no one ever wants more of these coins than are in plastic already. But he's not wrong that there is an ongoing attrition problem with early clad coinage.
This may seem a bit of a leap, but coin collecting was not common before the mid-1800s. Isn't the limited number of gem early large cents a result of this? Few people saved them to collect, so they just kept circulating until they were all well worn.
There is a definite connection between survivorship and collecting interest. Things like commemoratives survive in large numbers in Gem Unc because people save them and don't spend them. On the flip side, clad coins don't survive in large numbers because people spend them and don't save them....except state quarters...we need to dump more of those in Coinstars.
Very well said. I should have just led with that.
The coins have simply been ignored since the day they were made. Varieties circulated for years before they were ever even reported then most of the sets were destroyed for the halves and dollars, and the final indignity is the coins tarnished unnoticed.
Nobody ever noticed that many of the coins in the sets were ugly the day they were issued.
These sets are cut up for the halves and dollars so if demand develops for the other coins there is no source.
@wondercoin said:
Any argument that the rolls are inferior quality to the mint sets only makes my point even stronger. If the inferior rolls had a $3-$4 premium, then the mint sets never really had a 20 cent premium. Perhaps to uneducated classic coin sellers who don’t give a second thought to these sleeper modern coins they had a 20 cent premium. But, to the educated modern hunter, they were always worth buying at “ask” or higher. Now, the price of the set has caught up with the price of the coins in the set. That good progress. But, it not anything to get terribly excited about. And it doesn’t deter me (as a hunter) one bit that has occurred. Again, simply an unjustified inconsistency has been rectified.
I very much agree that the market is merely rationalizing and this won't have a dramatic effect on many of the buyers. I've seen many "crazy" situations last far longer than the disparity between the prices of mint sets and their constituent coins. The reason this is happening now is quite apparent; demand for Ikes and some half dollars is exceeding the ability of the market to supply them. This could be temporary or an aberration since the demand is sudden and likely related to covid, but I doubt it because demand has been building for many years and the supply has been dropping at an accelerating rate much longer.
Right now it's the large coins in the set in short supply which makes perfect sense because these have always been the ones with the demand. My concern is the other clad in the set (dimes and quarters) because so many of these have been wasted getting the big coins out. There are far fewer nice dimes and quarters than there are Ikes and a lot of the ones that survive are still in the mint set packaging where they are tarnishing. There are ample numbers of these for current demand but only because there is almost no current demand and price discovery is nearly non-existent.
@jmlanzaf said:
Now, that doesn't mean that there will ever be a problem here. It's quite possible that no one ever wants more of these coins than are in plastic already. But he's not wrong that there is an ongoing attrition problem with early clad coinage.
No, he's not. But I never said he was wrong about that. There has been ongoing attrition (whether it's a problem is a matter of perspective) with just about every coin type ever put into circulation. How many gem standing liberty quarters do you see?
Where I think he is wrong is the claim that clads are undervalued. The coins are worth what they're worth today based on collector interest and demand (or lack thereof)- no more, no less. Dealers aren't going to stock coins nobody is looking for in the hope that one day, they might start looking. Do you intentionally buy and hold coins you can't sell, with the idea that maybe in the future somebody might want them?
I mentioned three cent nickels earlier, they share some features with clad coinage- not much collector interest when issued, contain no silver, well struck pieces are scarce. Will they ever be any more popular with collectors than they are today? I'm guessing probably not, and it wouldn't surprise me if it's the same with clads. Will this change in the future? I don't know- my Magic 8-Ball is uncharacteristically noncommittal on the subject.
I mostly agree. For a market as large and well developed as "US coins", I don't think there is any coin that is "undervalued". The Market has spoken. The coins may be "unappreciated", like 3 cent nickels, but that is a different matter.
After all, I'm completely unappreciated on this forum. However, I don't think anyone is going to argue that I'm "undervalued"...well, except for my mother.
@rec78 said:
You cannot compare silver coin wear to clad coin wear. Clad coins are much tougher. After over 50 years in circulation, most clad coins dated in the 60's are F or better from my viewpoint. I search bank rolls a lot and I have never found a clad coin below vg by actual wear in circulation. Even the oldest dated clad coins grade vf or better most of the time. I am not talking about damaged coins, or messed with coins, just coins with regular circulation wear. There may be some, but I have not found one yet.
A lot of the early clad doesn't show much wear because the metal is so tough. I believe the FED is removing a lot of heavily worn coins as well. At least I don't see nearly as many since the mid-'00's.
I just can't call a heavily worn and poorly made 1966 quarter that is covered in dings and small scratches a VF just because little detail has been rubbed away. Almost all of these early coins were struck with the reverse (or obverse or both) lettering fused with the rim so they technically went from Unc to AG when the luster was broken. So I just grade them a lot tougher and to be VF a '66 has to have nice even light wear and be attractive.
About 30% of old quarters in circulation are culls with scratches, gouges, or pitting. Another 60%+ are covered in little dings. Much of the other 10% are unattractive because they were poorly made or have uneven wear.
This is personal taste, of course.
Back in the early-'80's most of the quarters in circulation wee nice attractive coins and there were only about 10% culls. But even then you couldn't find a nice attractive AU '69 quarter ('69-D's were still "easy") . With a lot of effort there were a few XF's. Now finding a nice F is not at all easy. Most specimens are still as ugly as the day they were made, dinged, or culls.
My grading is just not the same for clad as it is for silver coins because these were made differently and used differently. They look different and I believe any grading system should be able to describe the appearance of the coin or its desirability.
@koynekwest said:
I intend to dip the ones I have. They've been unattractively toned for many years. I use Tarnex so I'll try it on the '72s and '73's first and if that works I'll do the rest.
I'm very interested in your results.
"Some of those 1974 Mint sets contain the 1974-D DDO 50c. Those used to be easy to find-I cherried 13 sets with the DDO half from a single source a few years back. Most sets have been checked now."
I was late to the party on these because I just didn't see it and missed the reports. I did have a few years to save them before they were all cherry picked. They're worth around $35 now for typical quality.
Almost every one of those is apparently a handpicked mint set coin. There are only a couple substandard coins and they didn't come from mint sets though one might have been a souvenir set with a mintage of 20,000.
I have never claimed there are millions of these around which you have implied from my posts on occasion. I have told you a few things:
One, these coins are common versus other coins with about the only exceptions being NCLT, presumably most (but maybe not) 1933-1964 US classics, and more recent world coinage (last 10 or 20 years).
Two, the price differences and relative scarcity between these moderns and the primary competitors - 1933 to 1964 US classics - aren't meaningful to most collectors, probably over 99% who collect both. You may think it should be but it isn't and won't be.
Those who are in the market for both can buy a 1940's PCGS MS-63 to MS-66 Mercury dime for $10 to $20. If it's 10X more common, they do not care. They aren't going to pay multiples of this price for more than a very low proportion of US moderns in equivalent TPG quality because the coins just aren't interesting enough to them. If they did, then these US moderns would be selling for (approximately) equal prices to other coins which have noticeably higher preferences. Almost no one collects in a vacuum where they ignore the alternatives.
Three, the demand you have implied is never going to happen. It doesn't exist and never did for 1933-1964 classics with an equivalent collector base at any price you have claimed or implied, except due to the silver metal value. Whatever "mass market" exists (now or previously) is (and was) overwhelmingly at immaterial prices by low budget collectors who are either casual or cannot afford anything else.
I don't consider BU rolls from mint sets to be "raw moderns". They are very highly processed moderns. While the average quality of these is extremely good and higher than average mint set quality almost every single roll will contain no high grade Gems and no varieties.
I am confused by this reply. Why does it make any difference where the coins came from? Either the coins exist or not.
If the point of this thread is to point out that finding collectible quality coinage out of circulation finds is difficult or getting harder, I think everyone knows that. You've discussed clad quarters most often but these have been in circulation since 1965 when I was born.
Why would anyone expect to find "nice" coins from circulation of this age? When anyone here was collecting in the 1960's, was it feasible to find 1910's or 1920's in circulation in better quality than what is seen now?
Most of the better "raw moderns" are either sitting in someone's "change jar" and forgotten or in albums like Bailey's. We don't know how many still exist but there is every reason to believe it's a lot more than the number anyone sees, whatever the actual quality. When I look at eBay in responding to these posts, I don't see hundreds or thousands for any specific date but the number isn't low. Right now, my saved searches include a few rolls of 1969-P and 1971-P "BU" quarters. One claims "OBW" but doesn't matter if it isn't.
@jmlanzaf said:
Now, that doesn't mean that there will ever be a problem here. It's quite possible that no one ever wants more of these coins than are in plastic already. But he's not wrong that there is an ongoing attrition problem with early clad coinage.
No, he's not. But I never said he was wrong about that. There has been ongoing attrition (whether it's a problem is a matter of perspective) with just about every coin type ever put into circulation. How many gem standing liberty quarters do you see?
Where I think he is wrong is the claim that clads are undervalued. The coins are worth what they're worth today based on collector interest and demand (or lack thereof)- no more, no less. Dealers aren't going to stock coins nobody is looking for in the hope that one day, they might start looking. Do you intentionally buy and hold coins you can't sell, with the idea that maybe in the future somebody might want them?
I mentioned three cent nickels earlier, they share some features with clad coinage- not much collector interest when issued, contain no silver, well struck pieces are scarce. Will they ever be any more popular with collectors than they are today? I'm guessing probably not, and it wouldn't surprise me if it's the same with clads. Will this change in the future? I don't know- my Magic 8-Ball is uncharacteristically noncommittal on the subject.
It's no mystery 3CN aren't "popular". It's the coin attributes, now and then. Base metal like you said, small, and a moderately appealing to low appeal design. Not common in better grades but except those with really low mintages, not rare either. The only reason this series is "popular" is due to the outsized US collector base where many are willing to spend a lot more than anywhere else.
@koynekwest said:
I intend to dip the ones I have. They've been unattractively toned for many years. I use Tarnex so I'll try it on the '72s and '73's first and if that works I'll do the rest.
I'm very interested in your results.
"Some of those 1974 Mint sets contain the 1974-D DDO 50c. Those used to be easy to find-I cherried 13 sets with the DDO half from a single source a few years back. Most sets have been checked now."
I was late to the party on these because I just didn't see it and missed the reports. I did have a few years to save them before they were all cherry picked. They're worth around $35 now for typical quality.
@koynekwest said:
I intend to dip the ones I have. They've been unattractively toned for many years. I use Tarnex so I'll try it on the '72s and '73's first and if that works I'll do the rest.
I'm very interested in your results.
"Some of those 1974 Mint sets contain the 1974-D DDO 50c. Those used to be easy to find-I cherried 13 sets with the DDO half from a single source a few years back. Most sets have been checked now."
I was late to the party on these because I just didn't see it and missed the reports. I did have a few years to save them before they were all cherry picked. They're worth around $35 now for typical quality.
Tho they're not worth a ton of money they are a very nice doubled die, arguably the best in the series.
Question for Cladking - Using the 1972-D quarter as an example.. 40 years from now, what grades would you estimate will be worth more than $.25. Also what are your guesses as to the value of a slabbed MS64 and MS66 in the same time period.
I don't consider BU rolls from mint sets to be "raw moderns". They are very highly processed moderns. While the average quality of these is extremely good and higher than average mint set quality almost every single roll will contain no high grade Gems and no varieties.
I am confused by this reply. Why does it make any difference where the coins came from? Either the coins exist or not.
The only moderns with a significant premium are Gems and varieties which barely exist at all in rolls compiled from mint sets. It is the premium coins that drives most of the demand for mint sets and the fact that the sets are so inexpensive that allows people to do it profitably. Of course there are thousands of sets being dispatched by collectors who just cut out the nicest coins from the few sets they have and this coin may be far "out of the money" and usually is. The coins in the put together rolls are nice but they are typical.
There aren't rolls of quarters and dimes. The few rolls that exist are usually mint set rolls but you can't call up a wholesaler and order a 100 rolls of 1972-D quarters. They don't really stock such coins. Any time they get a significant accumulation is in order to assemble complete sets of clad quarters and these dispersed, not put into stock. There is simply almost no demand for quarters and dimes and the little that exists is satisfied through individual mint sets. Of course there are dealers, like Dave's Coins, that supply singles but they don't sell enough to create a wholesale demand. They can acquire their stock through mint sets.
If the point of this thread is to point out that finding collectible quality coinage out of circulation finds is difficult or getting harder, I think everyone knows that. You've discussed clad quarters most often but these have been in circulation since 1965 when I was born.
No, the point is that demand for mint sets has finally exceeded the supply. This has apparently occurred because of the stronger wholesale demand for half dollars and especially Ikes. It is occurring after most of the quarters have already been destroyed by being put into circulation, by tarnish, or by neglect.
As Wondercoin suggests I could be reading these road signs wrong. It's entirely possible that this is merely a rationalization of mint set prices. Even today the 1975 set contains about $13 worth of coins which far eclipses the new higher price of $8. The fact that most sets are tarnished merely helps to obscure what is really happening and what might be causing it.
Why would anyone expect to find "nice" coins from circulation of this age? When anyone here was collecting in the 1960's, was it feasible to find 1910's or 1920's in circulation in better quality than what is seen now?
It doesn't matter what people "expect". It matters what collectors can find.
Most of the better "raw moderns" are either sitting in someone's "change jar" and forgotten or in albums like Bailey's. We don't know how many still exist but there is every reason to believe it's a lot more than the number anyone sees, whatever the actual quality.
Sigh.
Nobody is required to collect anything but what is available defines what is collected.
When I look at eBay in responding to these posts, I don't see hundreds or thousands for any specific date but the number isn't low. Right now, my saved searches include a few rolls of 1969-P and 1971-P "BU" quarters. One claims "OBW" but doesn't matter if it isn't.
OBW '69 quarters are possible but highly improbable. While such a thing is a rarity and the coins in it are also a rarity and most completely identifiable as being issued for circulation there is no market at the current time for "circulation issue" '69 quarters. The coins are "always" low grade in these rolls. I've said before I have some of the nicest made for circulation but they really can't hold a candle to better mint set coins.
There aren't rolls of quarters and dimes. The few rolls that exist are usually mint set rolls but you can't call up a wholesaler and order a 100 rolls of 1972-D quarters. They don't really stock such coins.
I enjoy reading threads such as this one. They have appeared numerous times since I joined the forums in 2004 (has it been that long ago?).
Strong opinions are held by forum members on this topic, ranging from positive on Modern circulation strike coins to negative on them.
For me, as a collector, I like some of the Moderns coins from 1965 to the mid to late 1980s. When the relief of these coins began to be reduced I lost interest in them because they just have no appeal to me.
For the earlier Moderns with higher relief I like them and collect them on a show string budget. Finding examples of these coins that are high quality is not easy and when I do find them I appreciate them for what they are (very eye appealing compared to the usual ugly, tarnished, flawed examples of these coins).
Whether or not high quality examples exist in quantity or not (i.e. sitting in albums like the one shown by Baley) is unknown. If they do not exist in quantity then it is possible that these coins will see price appreciation whenever (if ever) collectors choose to devote time and money to collecting in this area of the hobby.
I have spent time hunting for high quality mid 20th century Proof and SMS coinage in the wild since I returned to the hobby as an adult in 1998. While my success in hunting in that niche area has run hot and cold, it has been much easier than looking for and finding raw examples of high quality, eye appealing Modern circulation strike coins of the type I like. When high quality examples of these coins have been found by me most of the time they are Mint Set coins.
Like them or dislike them, these "modern" circulation strike coins have been a part of U.S. Coinage for over 55 years now (about 20% of the life span of the USA). The story is likely the same with non US Coinage. They are a hobby segment which hobby participants (collectors, dealers, TPG's, investors, etc.) can, do and will participate in. If this segment of the hobby ever becomes "Nuclear Hot" and prices skyrocket that would be great. If this segment of the hobby remains one where demand is always low, that is also fine.
However this segment of the hobby performs in the future, participants can have fun in same.
In the meantime this thread, and other similar threads that will be posted in the future can be read with interest, enthusiasm, disdain or derision. The opinions of those who post to these types of threads are always a fun read.
P.S. I am still waiting for the day when Wondercoin chooses to display photos of the 1965-1998 Clad quarters in his #1 ranked Registry Set. His Registry Set of 1932-1964 silver quarters is devine.
That's a very nice set! Nice and gemmy. Is it yours?
Thank you! That means a lot coming from you, sincerely.
Yes, I'm complete in Gem and near gem 1941-98 with S mint proofs from 68-98. Also have a gem set of state quarters.
So, those aren't "in demand" from me, they're "supply"
The coins I have demand for are, you guessed it: the 1930s dates, with mintmarks. 🤔
There aren't rolls of quarters and dimes. The few rolls that exist are usually mint set rolls but you can't call up a wholesaler and order a 100 rolls of 1972-D quarters. They don't really stock such coins.
???
I've been mostly out of the market since 1998 due to reasons unrelated to coins and am currently trying to wrap up selling my coins due to age. But I am a close observer of the markets and can assure you there was no wholesale supply for clad quarters in 1998. Of course there are rolls sitting around and sometimes in quantity. Ace coin recently advertised significant quantities of BU rolls for sale. The point is not and never has been that they don't exist but that there is no demand. Because of this lack of demand most of the coins end up in circulation and the survivors are tarnished. The point of the thread is that if the demand for Ikes is high enough to cost a spike in wholesale prices what is going to happen when the demand for the small clad coins exceeds the supply.
This spike is actually very GOOD for clad quarters because people will start assembling rolls instead of spending them assuring some future supply.
“P.S. I am still waiting for the day when Wondercoin chooses to display photos of the 1965-1998 Clad quarters in his #1 ranked Registry Set. His Registry Set of 1932-1964 silver quarters is devine.”
Thank you Sanction II. And trust me, it’s not that I am “hiding” the coins for any strategic reason. I have just not submitted most of the coins for upgrade in the past 5+ years (some for 10-20 years) so PCGS never gets a chance to take pics of them. That will change this Summer. On my things to do list is to submit a significant number of the MS clad quarters for upgrade and for photographing. And, to some extent the Silvers as well.
My 1932-date Registry set of quarters is now nearly a 700 coin set that needs (2) 10 x 10 safe boxes to store it and another (3) 10 x 10 boxes to store just the dupes!! Even if you back out every MN tree variety (which I am not a huge fan of) you still have a 625+ coin set, not to mention 1,000+ dupes. I’ve been giving serious thought to simply hanging on to the (still) #1 MS Clad quarter set (which I am very proud of), a “box of (20)” mostly insanely beautiful silvers and a dozen or two of state and National Park pop top quarters and calling it a day. That decision alone might solve much of Cladking’s concern of lack of future material hitting the market! 😂 It’s on my things to discuss list with Justin next month - don’t mention it to him if you run into him first! 😉
Wondercoin
Please visit my website at www.wondercoins.com and my ebay auctions under my user name www.wondercoin.com.
Whether or not high quality examples exist in quantity or not (i.e. sitting in albums like the one shown by Baley) is unknown. If they do not exist in quantity then it is possible that these coins will see price appreciation whenever (if ever) collectors choose to devote time and money to collecting in this area of the hobby.
Collections like Bailey's are too few in number right now to be a factor. Obviously in the long run these collections currently in existence and yet to be made will constitute the entire supply. They will be the coins collected in a hundred years.
I'm questioning where the suppliers of singles will obtain their supply if mint sets become less available. If there is sufficient demand then wholesalers will begin stocking these but there's is nobody they can call and secure a bag set of early clads. There sources begin and end with mint sets and it appears the days of the mint sets is drawing near a close. Much fewer than half survive of the early sets and they are widely dispersed with many in the hands of the general public and most are in deplorable condition.
People have always believed mint sets were a bottomless well but the refill rate has fallen below the demand. It's not likely to get better but far worse.
I know of only a single significant hoard of nice coins. I don't know its size but it was sucking in a "lot" of mint sets back in the mid-'80's to mid-'90's. I'd wager it's fewer than 10,000 coins of each date and maybe a lot fewer. I doubt there are more than a few small hoards because finding the coins was never easy. Nobody has large numbers of the key dates though a few are probably sitting on slabbed key dates. These are cheap when they're out of the money and if you have access to the market you could probably stash a few away.
I have spent time hunting for high quality mid 20th century Proof and SMS coinage in the wild since I returned to the hobby as an adult in 1998. While my success in hunting in that niche area has run hot and cold, it has been much easier than looking for and finding raw examples of high quality, eye appealing Modern circulation strike coins of the type I like. When high quality examples of these coins have been found by me most of the time they are Mint Set coins.
I just recently cherried a deep cameo high grade '66 SMS cent from my sets. It's a sight to behold and really stands out from even the finest '66 cents. There are a lot of spectacular and different coins in these sets and collectors are missing a bet by ignoring them
Like them or dislike them, these "modern" circulation strike coins have been a part of U.S. Coinage for over 55 years now (about 20% of the life span of the USA).
Nearly 75% of the population was born after clads were released. And 99% of people starting collecting coins this year were born after 1964.
P.S. I am still waiting for the day when Wondercoin chooses to display photos of the 1965-1998 Clad quarters in his #1 ranked Registry Set. His Registry Set of 1932-1964 silver quarters is devine.
He picks coins based on their merit. It will be a something wondrous.
"The only moderns with a significant premium are Gems and varieties which barely exist at all in rolls compiled from mint sets."
Concerning the variety aspect of Mint sets, many years ago I purchased a full roll of 1970-D dimes that were cut from Mint sets looking for the better doubled die reverses. In this roll I found 34 doubled reverse dies about equally divided into the two best DDRs-Die #1 and Die#4. As with the '74-D half dollar they were all nice, early die states. Die states for many doubled dies are almost as important as is the grade.
Comments
I’m not bullish on clad either, but I’m sure people thought the same of Barber halves. Who would have thought that a coin with a woman that ugly would ever become mainstream and collectible?
Yes, take a look at Bailey's album above. I infer that there are a lot more collections out there than is evident since the price doesn't provide much motivation to sell. It won't change the economics if 99%+ are worn or eventually destroyed. It's only in comparison to 1933-1964 classics that the supply either is or might seem "low".
I have looked at the TPG data across many world coin series. A good number even though presumably in low proportion have counts in better grades that are a lot higher than collectors would ever expect. And most instances, there are likely more outside of a holder than in one.
Actually there is.
this is one of the chief functions of the wholesalers. I don't know what kind of supply they keep now days but back when it was easy to pick up a few dozen 1972 mint sets at a show or a shop they kept only a few hundred of each. They would easily have kept more but the flow was and still is one directional; toward the wholesalers. They could easily beef up their supply by not cutting sets but there was simply no demand for them.
Why do you think I'm "worried about Gems". What I'm worried about is only a small percentage of mint set coins are well made and mark free. Nice attractive BU mercury dimes are the norm. Nice attractive BU clad is the exception. Now the few that are left are corroding away because they are being neglected.
I'm concerned that there aren't enough for a mass market already and if this persists another decade there won't be enough for a niche market. I'm concerned that a lot of great coins are being destroyed through neglect and that pristine sets are suddenly demanding a premium and still people don't care about the situation.
No. The wholesale price on 1972-D quarters in BU is 40c. To get this you'll need to remove every single tarnished piece and all the poorly made and damaged coin. You must leave must leave in the MS-65's if you want to sell them easily.
I haven't seen a '72 in better than VF condition in five years. I'm a tough grader but if you think you can find nice attractive specimens in high grade... ...well, you will not.
In a thread where the topic is choice/gem moderns, I said:
"Aside from current mint issues, there is no "coin warehouse" dealers can order whatever they desire from."
And then...
So which is it- is there a coin warehouse where dealers can order well made and mark free moderns, or is there not? You seem to be arguing in favor of both points.
I don't know why the generally wear of the coins would be substantially different, but with the clads the starting number is just much much larger. If anything, my guess would be that Barbers saw more service and, on average, received more wear. The clads also had way more mint sets. I agree that the census rarities will be valuable, but a XF clad quarter will always be worth $.25.
I have an old Whitman Bookshelf album of the copper-nickel dates in Mint State from 1965 thru 1973. Most look like they'd be MS64 or better with a dip.
Since 2008 the premium on a '74 mint set at wholesale has varied between about -20c and 20c. Before covid it was was 20c. Now it's over $4.
Interesting.
A lot of the big coin shops used to keep a 100 or more of each date in stock and none of the coins were tarnished. It might take me a couple hours to look through all of them.
If those sets still exist where are they now? If those sets still exist then why were the dumpsters at the wholesalers full of mint and proof set packaging?
The sets are gone and the few survivors are tarnished.
The answer to "what happens to all these coins" was always the same; they went to jobbers and to build sets that mostly were sold to the general public but many were sold by ads in the numismatic press as well. I doubt there are any really massive hoards and these will tend to be tarnished because most people kept them in the plastic. This is not and never was a question of supply because many moderns were scarce from the year they were minted and still have a low price. This is about demand and the fact that it is outstripping supply.
I don't know- maybe because...
That's a very nice set! Nice and gemmy. Is it yours?
I am referring to clads, especially clad quarters. I am talking about "raw moderns" which is the raw material from which collections are built. There are really nice specimens all the way down to MS-63 and even lower grades aren't always ugly. I'm talking about ANY modern that a knowledgeable collector could be proud to have in a collection. This would include about 10% of the roll coins even though there are almost no roll coins and about 30% of mint set coins. Due to rampant tarnish that 30% number can be far lower.
This isn't about $1000 coins. It's more about a $5 '72-D in MS-66.
You say most remaining examples are "tarnished." Could this tarnish be removed with a dip?
Clad coins are lighter and far harder than silver. The light weight reduces wear and the durability of the metal reduces it more. A 1965 quarter has seen far more use than any barber quarter. New quarters don't circulate nearly so rapidly as the early clads but still take a beating in a coin counter about every other day. Quarters used to be real money and were spent over and over. Now they're like a token to keep track of change. They circulate briefly and then get tossed in a change jar for a few months.
Perhaps a larger difference is men used to keep coins in their pockets and most men did physical labor. This caused a nice even wear rather than the dings that quarters get now days. A coin could get a great deal of wear in a single day. This is quite unusual now days since there is very little physical work and people don't carry change. Back in 1965 there was still a workforce carrying change.
“Since 2008 the premium on a '74 mint set at wholesale has varied between about -20c and 20c. Before covid it was was 20c. Now it's over $4.”
Well, not exactly.
The Grey Sheet for April, 2019 (pre-Covid) was $2.00/coin wholesale bid for 1974 and 1974-D Ikes. So, just those 2 coins alone from the 1974 Mint Set enjoyed a combined $2 premium right there. On top of that, the 1974 50C each had a wholesale bid of $18/roll back then- another 80 cents of premium for just those 2 coins. That’s $2.80 in premium without even putting a premium value on the cents, nickels, dimes and quarters from the set (and the 74-S cents even back then were 13x face)!
So, as you see, the only thing that has really happened in the past 2 years is that the “sheet” has fixed the internal inconsistencies that existed when the set price was a complete disconnect to the individual prices set out on the coins within the set. You see this CK?
Just my 2 cents.
Wondercoin
Almost every one of those is apparently a handpicked mint set coin. There are only a couple substandard coins and they didn't come from mint sets though one might have been a souvenir set with a mintage of 20,000.
I've been working on exactly this.
I recently found an "easy" way to clean them but it is not as effective as my "regular" means which is a solution of mostly "91% isopropyl alcohol", about one quarter acetone, and a splash of either denatured or "80% ethyl alcohol". This will restore about half of the bad dates and up to 90% of the good dates.
My new method is to use the easy means first and then pull out the ones that are nice enough to bother with and likely to clean up in the solution.
Nickels are better, pennies are worse, and 40% half dollars are hit and miss but generally worse.
The big problem is that those which don't clean up are the ones that have been tarnished the longest. If people continue to take these coins for granted it will be too late at some point to save them. Also it's a nearly foregone conclusion that more dates will be affected over time.
Barring increased demand these coins are going to be lost to future generations.
I intend to dip the ones I have. They've been unattractively toned for many years. I use Tarnex so I'll try it on the '72s and '73's first and if that works I'll do the rest.
Perhaps I should warn collectors and would-be dealers that restoring proof coins is not so easy and some dates have close to a 0% restoration rate. It's also difficult to see the haze through the plastic. They look slightly "toned" or just a little dark but when you open them up they can have a bad haze.
Fortunately I'm pretty much done with my proof sets.
I don't consider BU rolls from mint sets to be "raw moderns". They are very highly processed moderns. While the average quality of these is extremely good and higher than average mint set quality almost every single roll will contain no high grade Gems and no varieties. The wholesalers who assemble most of these rolls pick out the Gems and varieties but they also toss out large numbers of culls. This is why you see so many proof and mint set coins in circulation; they are culls. A few are spent by collectors who just didn't want to bother with the rest of the set they bought to crack out the half dollar but most are hauled to the bank by wholesalers.
It's been highly profitable to bust up mint sets for years now. But the raw material (the '74 mint set) could be had for $4 which is a mere 17c premium. What will happen to the prices of tarnished sets if the choice ones are now selling for $8? I don't know but I expect that demand is going to continue to outstrip supply going forward.
Some of those 1974 Mint sets contain the 1974-D DDO 50c. Those used to be easy to find-I cherried 13 sets with the DDO half from a single source a few years back. Most sets have been checked now.
To add to my comments above-every DDO '74-D half I've seen from the Mint sets are nice early die states. I've seen probably close to 100.
I believe this is called "moving the goalposts."
A large part "the premium" for singles is "handling" ... you know, sticking the coin in a 2x2, writing the date and price, and waiting, sometimes years, for a buyer. 🤔
Liberty: Parent of Science & Industry
I think the 2021 Crossing the Delaware has spurred interest in the clad series 65-98. Similar to the excitement around Morgan and Peace Dollars this year. Those of us who grew up after silver was removed from circulation have an affinity for this series.
Any argument that the rolls are inferior quality to the mint sets only makes my point even stronger. If the inferior rolls had a $3-$4 premium, then the mint sets never really had a 20 cent premium. Perhaps to uneducated classic coin sellers who don’t give a second thought to these sleeper modern coins they had a 20 cent premium. But, to the educated modern hunter, they were always worth buying at “ask” or higher. Now, the price of the set has caught up with the price of the coins in the set. That good progress. But, it not anything to get terribly excited about. And it doesn’t deter me (as a hunter) one bit that has occurred. Again, simply an unjustified inconsistency has been rectified.
Wondercoin
You cannot compare silver coin wear to clad coin wear. Clad coins are much tougher. After over 50 years in circulation, most clad coins dated in the 60's are F or better from my viewpoint. I search bank rolls a lot and I have never found a clad coin below vg by actual wear in circulation. Even the oldest dated clad coins grade vf or better most of the time. I am not talking about damaged coins, or messed with coins, just coins with regular circulation wear. There may be some, but I have not found one yet.
And Fine is way below the grade we were talking about.
Are these the kind of coins nobody is saving?
Not nobody. But the OP is right, the attrition is real. I buy UNC clad sets all the time in estates. Unless the coins are exceptional, and they rarely are, I dump them in the Coinstar. It really is a catch-22. No dealer is going to save hundreds of UNC clad coins unless there is a market that makes it worthwhile but, to Cladking's point, it is hard for the market to develop when there are no coins. The result is that anyone looking for UNC early clad coins gets them from Mint sets, and the attrition continues.
Now, that doesn't mean that there will ever be a problem here. It's quite possible that no one ever wants more of these coins than are in plastic already. But he's not wrong that there is an ongoing attrition problem with early clad coinage.
This may seem a bit of a leap, but coin collecting was not common before the mid-1800s. Isn't the limited number of gem early large cents a result of this? Few people saved them to collect, so they just kept circulating until they were all well worn.
There is a definite connection between survivorship and collecting interest. Things like commemoratives survive in large numbers in Gem Unc because people save them and don't spend them. On the flip side, clad coins don't survive in large numbers because people spend them and don't save them....except state quarters...we need to dump more of those in Coinstars.
Very well said. I should have just led with that.
The coins have simply been ignored since the day they were made. Varieties circulated for years before they were ever even reported then most of the sets were destroyed for the halves and dollars, and the final indignity is the coins tarnished unnoticed.
Nobody ever noticed that many of the coins in the sets were ugly the day they were issued.
These sets are cut up for the halves and dollars so if demand develops for the other coins there is no source.
I very much agree that the market is merely rationalizing and this won't have a dramatic effect on many of the buyers. I've seen many "crazy" situations last far longer than the disparity between the prices of mint sets and their constituent coins. The reason this is happening now is quite apparent; demand for Ikes and some half dollars is exceeding the ability of the market to supply them. This could be temporary or an aberration since the demand is sudden and likely related to covid, but I doubt it because demand has been building for many years and the supply has been dropping at an accelerating rate much longer.
Right now it's the large coins in the set in short supply which makes perfect sense because these have always been the ones with the demand. My concern is the other clad in the set (dimes and quarters) because so many of these have been wasted getting the big coins out. There are far fewer nice dimes and quarters than there are Ikes and a lot of the ones that survive are still in the mint set packaging where they are tarnishing. There are ample numbers of these for current demand but only because there is almost no current demand and price discovery is nearly non-existent.
No, he's not. But I never said he was wrong about that. There has been ongoing attrition (whether it's a problem is a matter of perspective) with just about every coin type ever put into circulation. How many gem standing liberty quarters do you see?
Where I think he is wrong is the claim that clads are undervalued. The coins are worth what they're worth today based on collector interest and demand (or lack thereof)- no more, no less. Dealers aren't going to stock coins nobody is looking for in the hope that one day, they might start looking. Do you intentionally buy and hold coins you can't sell, with the idea that maybe in the future somebody might want them?
I mentioned three cent nickels earlier, they share some features with clad coinage- not much collector interest when issued, contain no silver, well struck pieces are scarce. Will they ever be any more popular with collectors than they are today? I'm guessing probably not, and it wouldn't surprise me if it's the same with clads. Will this change in the future? I don't know- my Magic 8-Ball is uncharacteristically noncommittal on the subject.
I mostly agree. For a market as large and well developed as "US coins", I don't think there is any coin that is "undervalued". The Market has spoken. The coins may be "unappreciated", like 3 cent nickels, but that is a different matter.
After all, I'm completely unappreciated on this forum. However, I don't think anyone is going to argue that I'm "undervalued"...well, except for my mother.
A lot of the early clad doesn't show much wear because the metal is so tough. I believe the FED is removing a lot of heavily worn coins as well. At least I don't see nearly as many since the mid-'00's.
I just can't call a heavily worn and poorly made 1966 quarter that is covered in dings and small scratches a VF just because little detail has been rubbed away. Almost all of these early coins were struck with the reverse (or obverse or both) lettering fused with the rim so they technically went from Unc to AG when the luster was broken. So I just grade them a lot tougher and to be VF a '66 has to have nice even light wear and be attractive.
About 30% of old quarters in circulation are culls with scratches, gouges, or pitting. Another 60%+ are covered in little dings. Much of the other 10% are unattractive because they were poorly made or have uneven wear.
This is personal taste, of course.
Back in the early-'80's most of the quarters in circulation wee nice attractive coins and there were only about 10% culls. But even then you couldn't find a nice attractive AU '69 quarter ('69-D's were still "easy") . With a lot of effort there were a few XF's. Now finding a nice F is not at all easy. Most specimens are still as ugly as the day they were made, dinged, or culls.
My grading is just not the same for clad as it is for silver coins because these were made differently and used differently. They look different and I believe any grading system should be able to describe the appearance of the coin or its desirability.
I'm very interested in your results.
I was late to the party on these because I just didn't see it and missed the reports. I did have a few years to save them before they were all cherry picked. They're worth around $35 now for typical quality.
I have never claimed there are millions of these around which you have implied from my posts on occasion. I have told you a few things:
One, these coins are common versus other coins with about the only exceptions being NCLT, presumably most (but maybe not) 1933-1964 US classics, and more recent world coinage (last 10 or 20 years).
Two, the price differences and relative scarcity between these moderns and the primary competitors - 1933 to 1964 US classics - aren't meaningful to most collectors, probably over 99% who collect both. You may think it should be but it isn't and won't be.
Those who are in the market for both can buy a 1940's PCGS MS-63 to MS-66 Mercury dime for $10 to $20. If it's 10X more common, they do not care. They aren't going to pay multiples of this price for more than a very low proportion of US moderns in equivalent TPG quality because the coins just aren't interesting enough to them. If they did, then these US moderns would be selling for (approximately) equal prices to other coins which have noticeably higher preferences. Almost no one collects in a vacuum where they ignore the alternatives.
Three, the demand you have implied is never going to happen. It doesn't exist and never did for 1933-1964 classics with an equivalent collector base at any price you have claimed or implied, except due to the silver metal value. Whatever "mass market" exists (now or previously) is (and was) overwhelmingly at immaterial prices by low budget collectors who are either casual or cannot afford anything else.
I am confused by this reply. Why does it make any difference where the coins came from? Either the coins exist or not.
If the point of this thread is to point out that finding collectible quality coinage out of circulation finds is difficult or getting harder, I think everyone knows that. You've discussed clad quarters most often but these have been in circulation since 1965 when I was born.
Why would anyone expect to find "nice" coins from circulation of this age? When anyone here was collecting in the 1960's, was it feasible to find 1910's or 1920's in circulation in better quality than what is seen now?
Most of the better "raw moderns" are either sitting in someone's "change jar" and forgotten or in albums like Bailey's. We don't know how many still exist but there is every reason to believe it's a lot more than the number anyone sees, whatever the actual quality. When I look at eBay in responding to these posts, I don't see hundreds or thousands for any specific date but the number isn't low. Right now, my saved searches include a few rolls of 1969-P and 1971-P "BU" quarters. One claims "OBW" but doesn't matter if it isn't.
It's no mystery 3CN aren't "popular". It's the coin attributes, now and then. Base metal like you said, small, and a moderately appealing to low appeal design. Not common in better grades but except those with really low mintages, not rare either. The only reason this series is "popular" is due to the outsized US collector base where many are willing to spend a lot more than anywhere else.
I will let you know.
Tho they're not worth a ton of money they are a very nice doubled die, arguably the best in the series.
Question for Cladking - Using the 1972-D quarter as an example.. 40 years from now, what grades would you estimate will be worth more than $.25. Also what are your guesses as to the value of a slabbed MS64 and MS66 in the same time period.
Thanks for the discussion.
The only moderns with a significant premium are Gems and varieties which barely exist at all in rolls compiled from mint sets. It is the premium coins that drives most of the demand for mint sets and the fact that the sets are so inexpensive that allows people to do it profitably. Of course there are thousands of sets being dispatched by collectors who just cut out the nicest coins from the few sets they have and this coin may be far "out of the money" and usually is. The coins in the put together rolls are nice but they are typical.
There aren't rolls of quarters and dimes. The few rolls that exist are usually mint set rolls but you can't call up a wholesaler and order a 100 rolls of 1972-D quarters. They don't really stock such coins. Any time they get a significant accumulation is in order to assemble complete sets of clad quarters and these dispersed, not put into stock. There is simply almost no demand for quarters and dimes and the little that exists is satisfied through individual mint sets. Of course there are dealers, like Dave's Coins, that supply singles but they don't sell enough to create a wholesale demand. They can acquire their stock through mint sets.
No, the point is that demand for mint sets has finally exceeded the supply. This has apparently occurred because of the stronger wholesale demand for half dollars and especially Ikes. It is occurring after most of the quarters have already been destroyed by being put into circulation, by tarnish, or by neglect.
As Wondercoin suggests I could be reading these road signs wrong. It's entirely possible that this is merely a rationalization of mint set prices. Even today the 1975 set contains about $13 worth of coins which far eclipses the new higher price of $8. The fact that most sets are tarnished merely helps to obscure what is really happening and what might be causing it.
It doesn't matter what people "expect". It matters what collectors can find.
Sigh.
Nobody is required to collect anything but what is available defines what is collected.
OBW '69 quarters are possible but highly improbable. While such a thing is a rarity and the coins in it are also a rarity and most completely identifiable as being issued for circulation there is no market at the current time for "circulation issue" '69 quarters. The coins are "always" low grade in these rolls. I've said before I have some of the nicest made for circulation but they really can't hold a candle to better mint set coins.
Yesterday:
Today:
???
I enjoy reading threads such as this one. They have appeared numerous times since I joined the forums in 2004 (has it been that long ago?).
Strong opinions are held by forum members on this topic, ranging from positive on Modern circulation strike coins to negative on them.
For me, as a collector, I like some of the Moderns coins from 1965 to the mid to late 1980s. When the relief of these coins began to be reduced I lost interest in them because they just have no appeal to me.
For the earlier Moderns with higher relief I like them and collect them on a show string budget. Finding examples of these coins that are high quality is not easy and when I do find them I appreciate them for what they are (very eye appealing compared to the usual ugly, tarnished, flawed examples of these coins).
Whether or not high quality examples exist in quantity or not (i.e. sitting in albums like the one shown by Baley) is unknown. If they do not exist in quantity then it is possible that these coins will see price appreciation whenever (if ever) collectors choose to devote time and money to collecting in this area of the hobby.
I have spent time hunting for high quality mid 20th century Proof and SMS coinage in the wild since I returned to the hobby as an adult in 1998. While my success in hunting in that niche area has run hot and cold, it has been much easier than looking for and finding raw examples of high quality, eye appealing Modern circulation strike coins of the type I like. When high quality examples of these coins have been found by me most of the time they are Mint Set coins.
Like them or dislike them, these "modern" circulation strike coins have been a part of U.S. Coinage for over 55 years now (about 20% of the life span of the USA). The story is likely the same with non US Coinage. They are a hobby segment which hobby participants (collectors, dealers, TPG's, investors, etc.) can, do and will participate in. If this segment of the hobby ever becomes "Nuclear Hot" and prices skyrocket that would be great. If this segment of the hobby remains one where demand is always low, that is also fine.
However this segment of the hobby performs in the future, participants can have fun in same.
In the meantime this thread, and other similar threads that will be posted in the future can be read with interest, enthusiasm, disdain or derision. The opinions of those who post to these types of threads are always a fun read.
P.S. I am still waiting for the day when Wondercoin chooses to display photos of the 1965-1998 Clad quarters in his #1 ranked Registry Set. His Registry Set of 1932-1964 silver quarters is devine.
Thank you! That means a lot coming from you, sincerely.
Yes, I'm complete in Gem and near gem 1941-98 with S mint proofs from 68-98. Also have a gem set of state quarters.
So, those aren't "in demand" from me, they're "supply"
The coins I have demand for are, you guessed it: the 1930s dates, with mintmarks. 🤔
Liberty: Parent of Science & Industry
I've been mostly out of the market since 1998 due to reasons unrelated to coins and am currently trying to wrap up selling my coins due to age. But I am a close observer of the markets and can assure you there was no wholesale supply for clad quarters in 1998. Of course there are rolls sitting around and sometimes in quantity. Ace coin recently advertised significant quantities of BU rolls for sale. The point is not and never has been that they don't exist but that there is no demand. Because of this lack of demand most of the coins end up in circulation and the survivors are tarnished. The point of the thread is that if the demand for Ikes is high enough to cost a spike in wholesale prices what is going to happen when the demand for the small clad coins exceeds the supply.
This spike is actually very GOOD for clad quarters because people will start assembling rolls instead of spending them assuring some future supply.
“P.S. I am still waiting for the day when Wondercoin chooses to display photos of the 1965-1998 Clad quarters in his #1 ranked Registry Set. His Registry Set of 1932-1964 silver quarters is devine.”
Thank you Sanction II. And trust me, it’s not that I am “hiding” the coins for any strategic reason. I have just not submitted most of the coins for upgrade in the past 5+ years (some for 10-20 years) so PCGS never gets a chance to take pics of them. That will change this Summer. On my things to do list is to submit a significant number of the MS clad quarters for upgrade and for photographing. And, to some extent the Silvers as well.
My 1932-date Registry set of quarters is now nearly a 700 coin set that needs (2) 10 x 10 safe boxes to store it and another (3) 10 x 10 boxes to store just the dupes!! Even if you back out every MN tree variety (which I am not a huge fan of) you still have a 625+ coin set, not to mention 1,000+ dupes. I’ve been giving serious thought to simply hanging on to the (still) #1 MS Clad quarter set (which I am very proud of), a “box of (20)” mostly insanely beautiful silvers and a dozen or two of state and National Park pop top quarters and calling it a day. That decision alone might solve much of Cladking’s concern of lack of future material hitting the market! 😂 It’s on my things to discuss list with Justin next month - don’t mention it to him if you run into him first! 😉
Wondercoin
That's what I said (absent the "1998" part) yesterday. You said there was.
Collections like Bailey's are too few in number right now to be a factor. Obviously in the long run these collections currently in existence and yet to be made will constitute the entire supply. They will be the coins collected in a hundred years.
I'm questioning where the suppliers of singles will obtain their supply if mint sets become less available. If there is sufficient demand then wholesalers will begin stocking these but there's is nobody they can call and secure a bag set of early clads. There sources begin and end with mint sets and it appears the days of the mint sets is drawing near a close. Much fewer than half survive of the early sets and they are widely dispersed with many in the hands of the general public and most are in deplorable condition.
People have always believed mint sets were a bottomless well but the refill rate has fallen below the demand. It's not likely to get better but far worse.
I know of only a single significant hoard of nice coins. I don't know its size but it was sucking in a "lot" of mint sets back in the mid-'80's to mid-'90's. I'd wager it's fewer than 10,000 coins of each date and maybe a lot fewer. I doubt there are more than a few small hoards because finding the coins was never easy. Nobody has large numbers of the key dates though a few are probably sitting on slabbed key dates. These are cheap when they're out of the money and if you have access to the market you could probably stash a few away.
I just recently cherried a deep cameo high grade '66 SMS cent from my sets. It's a sight to behold and really stands out from even the finest '66 cents. There are a lot of spectacular and different coins in these sets and collectors are missing a bet by ignoring them
Nearly 75% of the population was born after clads were released. And 99% of people starting collecting coins this year were born after 1964.
He picks coins based on their merit. It will be a something wondrous.
"The only moderns with a significant premium are Gems and varieties which barely exist at all in rolls compiled from mint sets."
Concerning the variety aspect of Mint sets, many years ago I purchased a full roll of 1970-D dimes that were cut from Mint sets looking for the better doubled die reverses. In this roll I found 34 doubled reverse dies about equally divided into the two best DDRs-Die #1 and Die#4. As with the '74-D half dollar they were all nice, early die states. Die states for many doubled dies are almost as important as is the grade.