Old Clad Coin Article.

cladking

There are a few things in here of which I was not aware.

I've always liked Rapsus' insights as well;

https://www.numismaticnews.net/archive/clad-coins-welcomed-coolly-by-collectors

rip_f

I too was not aware of this fact:

"The last 90 percent silver quarters were struck in January 1966, the last silver dimes in February of that year, and half dollars in April 1966."

So my BU rolls of 1964 coins were probably minted in 1966!

vulcanize

Thank you for the very interesting article.
I was just looking through my mint sets today and some of the coins are in remarkable condition making me wonder whether to break them out and submit for grading.

ricko

Interesting article... I looked, for several years, for the off metal coins mentioned. Never found one....Cheers, RickO

Type2

Very good read, looked at some other articles wow big changes in 2028 with fractionals coming out in silver that year. Very cool I’ll be in for that one for sure.

leothelyon

Curious to what became of the Bible bill. Here's https://www.ngccoin.com/news/article/7694/

Leo

cladking

@leothelyon said:
Curious to what became of the Bible bill. Here's https://www.ngccoin.com/news/article/7694/

"By 1961, it was evident that there were regional shortages of coins, and this eventually progressed to a nationwide crisis during 1963-65. The rapid expansion of mechanical vending services that gobbled up coins led to a situation in which many pieces were idled within collection boxes for weeks or even months at a time. "

I think everyone missed the real reason for the coin shortage in 1965. Obviously it wasn't caused by collectors but blaming vending machines probably is wrong as well. In those days a lot of the coins in the machines were nickels since even a pack of cigarettes was only 20c, pop was 10c and candy bars could still be found for 5c.

But in 1965 nickel production was actually DECREASED 90% and less than half the five year average. If vending machines were the cause then nickel production would have been far far higher.

It was the general public hoarding silver. The mint had been scaring people for years that there was too little silver to continue minting coins so many people just started keeping their change. If they could afford to save the silver then pennies and nickels were simply incidental. Then when lots of clads started getting mixed in they pulled out the nickels and pennies with the clads ending the coin "shortage". Remember they were minting the '64 nickels into the middle of '65.

This was a terrible time to be a coin collector and much of the reason is we were blamed unfairly. Of course blaming collectors helped take the spotlight off of the highly inflationary debasement of the currency which was completed in the early '70's.

CoinHoarder

@cladking

Very interesting information. Thank you for the time and information that you put into your very educational and historical, numismatics postings.

cladking

@leothelyon said:
Curious to what became of the Bible bill. Here's https://www.ngccoin.com/news/article/7694/

It's not clear from the article but the Bible Bill never passed. For practical purposes the date freeze replaced it.

"While serious collectors continued to buy and study coins as before, the get-rich-quick speculators and the dealers who served their appetites abandoned the hobby in droves during 1965-66. A numismatic winter set in for the next few years, and it didn't lift until the return of both proof sets and mintmarks in 1968."

Not all the individuals in the roll and set boom were opportunists. There was extensive speculation but this was based on the notion that there was no upper limit to the fast growing hobby. Ten of millions of children and young people were collecting coins and someone needed to supply this market. It was not apparent that the supply had crept higher than any possible demand by 1964. Escalating prices of BU rolls seemed to suggest there was still lots of money to be made. This had been going on for many years. One man had even sought to buy the entire San Francisco mintage of '31 dimes which sat in storage because of the depression. The mint was put off by the offer and ceased making extremely short mintages. Virtually the entire mintage of '50-D nickels had been set aside.

Many of the new collectors were just putting together sets of older coins and principally cents and nickels.

This was not related to "modern" collecting but rather to the very nature of collectibles markets combined with a heavy dose of speculation. This market collapsed when it was announced that alternatives were actively being sought for coinage material which was nearly simultaneous with the proposal to freeze the '64 date. It was hardly surprising such news would rip the foundation from such a speculative market.

The pall that was cast over coin collecting hardly ended or even much abated with the return of proof sets. The pall was the debased garbage that was still in circulation and rapidly driving both silver and every more numismatically interesting cent and nickels out of circulation. People alive in 1964/ 5, and especially coin collectors, simply never wanted or thought they ever would want to collect junk. In these early years pocket change was remarkably boring because the good coins were gone and the new coins were all high grade, poorly made, and had enormous mintages. They were not collected so they were not saved. This makes them different than the collectible of the previous 30 years by definition; they were not saved.

Indeed, it wasn't just millions of opportunists and charlatans that left the hobby in 1964. It was tens of millions of young people. Then because the common wisdom became that modern coins could never be collectible the hobby continued to shrink right up through 1995 which was the depths of the coin depression. Other than high dollar coins and a few select series like Morgans nothing could be sold except at giveaway pricing. Even these markets were generally weak. Moderns picked up when the states quarters were considered and the rest of the markets followed. Tens of millions of baby boomers reentered the market along with even larger numbers of young people.

It was the general public that created the demand for 1968 proof and mint sets. This included collectors and hangers-on who had been involved in the BU roll boom. Certainly active collectors bought some but this was generally motivated by speculation since sets could be flipped at a quick profit. Very very few people who bough sets in '68 were actively making sets of the coins in them. Mintages remain high.

Today the collectors and speculators who were active in 1965 are retiring from the hobby in droves. They are being replaced by huge numbers of people who first collected states quarters and by an emerging middle class all over the world.

The hobby will be transformed over the next ten years and in many ways it might be more dramatic than the changes wrought by Bible Bill or any date freeze. One thing is constant; change.