What is going on with modern mint sets?
cladking
Posts: 28,351 ✭✭✭✭✭
I'm seeing more and more venues for buying '65 to date mint sets at retail prices. These prices can be 3 or 4 times wholesale which doubled last year. Even the biggest retail sellers keep running out of the tough dates like the '68 to '71 (especially the '69). All of the venues put together might not control more than a few hundred sets of some of these dates. Meanwhile there's no evidence that the corroded sets (which are typical) are backing up in the supply chain which suggests sets are still being busted up and now the coins are being conserved. Prices for single coins are all over the map and BU roll prices are still firming.
Rather than a two tier market developing for "retail friendly" and "corroded" sets they are all being sucked up at this time. This suggests to me that almost all the modern mint sets and BU singles are being retailed!!! If there were a "normal" coin market spread on a 1969 mint set it would bid at $20 and sell for $22.50
There is nothing normal about this market. It appears most of the demand originates outside of the coin hobby! You can go to Walmart on-line and buy them even though your corner shop won't have them. It appears Walmart buys them in bunches several hundred a time but it's hard to imagine who these suppliers are. I suspect it's jobbers. They get them cheap and flip them. The big wholesalers don't seem to have many.
If anyone knows anything I'm all ears since I've never seen anything like this.
Comments
Just checked out Walmart.com and the site says packed and shipped by APMEX. It doesn’t strike me as a good place to buy unadulterated original sets but I could be wrong.
Wal-Mart is selling coins! I had no idea. The prices appear inflated. They also appear to be selling for APMEX. Coins will be packaged and and shipped by APMEX.
I'm seeing many 1969 mint sets available on eBay at much less than $20, including shipping.
My Adolph A. Weinman signature
How does one adulterate mint sets?
a·dul·ter·ate
/əˈdəltəˌrāt/
verb
past tense: adulterated; past participle: adulterated
render (something) poorer in quality by adding another substance, typically an inferior one.
Okay, a poor choice in words but adding another substance could be that other coin guy 😂
Mint sets are sealed, are they not? How might one add another substance?
The other substance is the other coin guy looking at the mint set and deciding whether or not he wants it.
If he does not like it and passes it along
And then it gets handled by 250 more “Coin guys“ over the next 25 years then eventually ends up on the Walmart website I would say it’s adulterated.
Anyway when the seal is broken they tone much more.
Regardless of the choice of words, we all know that many mint sets are not holding up well over time in the original packaging. I do not know if these Wal-Mart sales show stock photos or the actual coins.
You don't want to know.
APMEX sales. Walmart just hosts like eBay or Amazon.
Yes, they use stock photos.
So- pretty much like the sets in coin shops all across the country and at every coin show then?
edited to add... And cherrypickers wonder why dealers get salty when they're asked to let people paw through... I mean- inspect (yeah, that's it) their mint sets.
Yea I don’t know about all that I do know it’s always a crapshoot regardless of where they’ve been.
I’ve always assumed that buying them from dealers was a bad idea because they’ve already been searched. But some recent purchases from local dealers, US Coins being one. I got the notion that they don’t have time to be floundering around in mints sets.
Not to mention they had several customers selling their inherited collections while I was there.
I don’t do that anymore instead I just offer a price for the whole box.
Actually, lots of them don't. But they still don't like people handling them looking for cherrypicks since eventually, the envelopes end up looking like they've been gnawed on by rats, making the sets even harder to sell.
That approach is much more likely to lead to a satisfactory outcome.
I’m mostly looking for gems that are usually easy to spot but even just quickly opening and looking at every one of them, on the fly, while under their fluorescent lights and having to be picky and choosy while they stare at you (breath) proved to be let’s just say unsatisfactory.
Instead I look at a few and within a minute I’ll ask what would you take for the whole box?. You know kinda speaking their language 😉
Edit plus I don’t leave anything to think about later.
No coin shows here, but several gun shows a year. There are about five tables that always have some coins and mint sets. I have been through the offered mint sets a couple of times... Nothing special. And most of the coins - some slabbed, no CAC - are overpriced. Obviously pursuing the uninformed market. Cheers, RickO
I have sold all my excess Mint Sets on BST and to tell the truth, buyers and offers were few and far between. It was like i was almost giving them away.
USN & USAF retired 1971-1993
Successful Transactions with more than 100 Members
OK, I looked and saw mostly what I expected to see. '69 mint sets in a wide array of prices and quality. But where I used to see hundreds on eBay and often saw unopened boxes of them these were all singles and all corroded. The bad one were lower for the main part and nicer ones higher. There were only a few dozen if that many.
Remember they made millions of these sets. it would be unreasonable to expect them all to be gone. My point isn't that they are all gone, my point is that where there used to be tens of thousands of nice pristine sets on the market at any given time there are now hundreds and most of the rest are gone and can not be replaced. My point is that this has occurred because there is almost no demand for the sets. Very few people have any interest in modern common junk so they still accumulate on the market but now in tiny numbers.
But the overarching point in this thread is that while aggregate demand is still tiny just as it always has been now there's something new. Instead of sets accumulating on the market until they get destroyed by wholesalers in huge numbers now there is demand from outside the hobby and all the nice sets are flowing to new venues that cater predominantly to the public. They are consuming the mint sets that are "retail friendly" and the rest of the sets are being dismantled, cleaned, and retailed to this same public. A '69 mint set that isn't nice enough to retail is cleaned and the coins sold individually at prices as high as about 8,000% of wholesale!!!
It's a brand new market and probably the cause of wholesale prices doubling last year. The hobby doesn't like mint sets but the public does. The sets that were destroyed before 2022 are for the main part gone in their entirety. Maybe one or two coins were saved out of a set but for the main par none were saved. Now that most of the coins are gone the public is saving what's left. There are 330,000,000 people in "the public" so it might not take them too long to save a few hundred '69 mint sets. Then what?
This current situation is not sustainable. Even if sets were not continuing to tarnish a diminishing number of sets can not long feed an increasing demand.
And there are collectors within the hobby continuing to put pressure on supplies.
Suffice to say I never could have predicted the current state of affairs but then I never knew that these sets would tarnish as they have. Fewer than a third of the sets survive and better than 90% are tarnished too badly to wholesale. There are very few of these sets on the market at any given time.
Paying 10% back of bid to full wholesale bid, I am getting flooded with the sets. I need to decide if I should continue to pursue them.
I also got in last week a 63 year old mint sealed bag of 1960-D Jefferson 5C (the only 38-64 5C without a FS at PCGS). 4,000 fresh specimens to hunt for the holy grail FS example. The “modern” work never ends! Lol. Or, are these finally classics now?
Wondercoin
In the old days I believe nice sets would ask at $22.50 and bid at $20 with the understanding that even nice sets have minimal problems with tarnish and spotting. Right now today bad sets would ask at $9 and bid at $11. Good sets would retail intact and bad sets would be dismantled, restored, and sold as singles at retail. The total value is far higher as singles since more than half the coins will be fine after restoration and the prices are far higher. It requires far more effort to sell singles than sets. This is what's going on apparently anyway but is invisible to the casual observer.
This market is complicated by the fact that a very few coins can be graded and sold at far higher prices and many coins in these sets were garbage and unsellable even before they tarnished. Today this would be a tough market for a dealer to break into because so much more knowledge is required.
These are interesting times.
I'm guessing a lot of the flood is the usual suspects; 1979 to 1994 sets. These were still made in large numbers, haven't had time to be consumed yet, and have much less problem with corrosion. I know buyers generally have to buy almost very date to get a good flow coming in.
I used to go through those bags of '60-D nickels looking for "bar dates". Imagine my surprise when Variety Vista added them!!! My collection went from being $6 worth of small change to as much as a $50 "investment".
What kind of numbers do you believe may still exist in these souvenir type sets, especially 82 and 83?
I’ve had pretty good luck with them as they usually tone and not tarnish. Keep in mind my sampling size is less than 50 of any particular year and maybe 10 or 12 of the aforementioned.
I don't have a significant sample size of any of these either. Except for the US mint souvenir sets I'm not sure I've seen even 20 of each of the Philly and Denver '82's and '83's. I've not seen much tarnish except in the big yellow set that I call the "California set". These come with some nice coins but often tarnish. The others are usually OK. The Numismatic News sets (not pictured) are the best of all these sets but they do tarnish a little sometimes.
That is a really great '82-P half dollar. I've not seen one this nice.
Very few of the '82 or '83 coins come as spectacular Gems but I've seen a couple. I've also got a solid strike from new dies '82-P 25c from a bag.
All of the private mint set assemblers dis a really good job which is extremely surprising since even chBU was tough for most of these coins. While the '82-P quarters and dimes are usually only MS-63 this is much better than typical. Obtaining such nice specimens of all these coins from both mints must have required substantial effort. Had I realized how nice they were in 1982 I'd have shelled out the four or five dollars they were asking for them. It was years before I knew and by then they were hard to find.
As to mintages it's very difficult to say. There would have been enormous attrition initially. I didn't see them available in most coin shops I visited and I went to a lot.
My guess is that most of them of in the 4000 to 5000 range. This is based primarily on their incidence relative the souvenir sets with "known" mintages of 10,000 to 20,000. Some were probably marketed regionally and this could skew my sampling quite a bit. I saw very few ads in the coin papers for these.
I see a lot more souvenir sets than these. It's probably about 8 : 1 but of course souvenir sets are only half a mint set. I see very few of the California Set.
That half along with a few others are currently being graded. I’m wondering if I should send in the D it also looks amazing but has a sizable mark above God so I was waiting to see what the P would do.
Here is my first attempt which came back 66 and though it has a hammered strike it has several deep cuts too. So I’m hoping they like the one above better than this one…
Next time you search for these try typing exactly what is on the envelope rather than just US mint set. If any pop (this way) they're typically from a non coin collector who may also have many other unrelated items which is my second green flag. At that point the only thing to hold me back is a revealing picture that shows bad coins.
In fact with those elements in play the worse the pics the better.
Just shows me they don’t know. Conversely if it looks like a (here we go again) dealer with many listings, multiples of the same and/or close ups I avoid it like the plague.
I talked to a dealer friend late last week. He said he was going to drop down and pay only 60% of greysheet, and eventually stop buying then unless they were older silver sets.
That is not the norm, although a lot of people simply don't want to bother with them. The national wholesalers pay far more than that. For the price of shipping, your friend could make money at 80%.
As the sets come into coin shops they are worth bid. Perhaps your dealer friend simply got way too many of the older dark sets and they were returned to him. Having a bunch of 1970 mint sets returned and not even knowing why would sting. Most dealers have never wanted to deal with mint sets because they are bulky, hated, and require a lot of knowledge and patience to get their full value. In the past there was no walk in demand for them so they accumulated in inventory until they often were cut up for the register.
I suppose ultimately this is the reason that the sets and their parts are being retailed now days: Dealers won't deal with them so retailers stepped into this void. Most coin shops simply have no inventory in mint sets or moderns so buyers have no choice but to seek them on-line.
Perhaps this isn't so huge a change as it appears to me. All along a few mint sets have been picked off on their one way trip to being destroyed to make singles and rolls. The big difference is that today the growing demand is nearly as large as the total supply of nice mint sets and the market for nice retail friendly singles is nearing the size of the supply created by the destruction of "bad" mint sets.
These markets were easier to understand in the old days when supplies were enormous, demand was almost non-existent, and mint sets just flowed to wholesalers who cut them up indiscriminately. Bids under face value and massive destruction are easier to understand than the complexity being approached now days.
Prices at Walmart - at least for what I have been looking at - are very inflated; moreover, it tends to be for a type of coin wherein you are given a "sample" picture. and not the exact coin.
Just send all of your nice examples to me - That'll be all
It reflects expansion of the seller food chain.
Indeed!
What keeps me so interested (besides not having sold everything yet
) is that very few dealers have any inventory of moderns either raw or slabbed. If these coins get popular enough to force dealers to stock them then there aren't even enough sets on the market at any given time to "prime the pump". Where will they even get nice retail friendly singles if most of these are being sold at retail for fifty times wholesale price. They can't very well buy them from Walmart and mark them up even further.
If dealers start buying sets for inventory it will more than triple current demand. BU cent rolls have mostly gone bad, BU nickel rolls have very spotty availability. Most half dollar and dollar BU rolls have been busted up. There never were rolls of dimes and quarters so these have to come from mint sets.
The current trends are in no way sustainable.
I think the demand for high grade examples will go through the roof and the demand for old mint sets died long ago. You’re hinting at the inevitable without actually saying it. I’m new to the game and maybe living in a bubble here but I think the honey hole is drying up sooner rather than later.
Top graded PCGS certified modern singles (Lincolns thru Ike's & SBA's up to 1999) already bring amazing prices in GC auctions.
I'm referring to circulation strike issues.
Maybe I’m not going overboard in trying to protect my modern coin rolls, mint sets, proof sets and other modern mint products by putting them in airtight containers with desiccant in them after all. I was just working on these this weekend.
Note, this picture was taken right after I put my new humidity meter lids on, they later equilibrated to less than 20% relative humidity. I’m trying to keep them from getting spots and environmental damage. I was storing my modern mint products in the giant blue drums with huge desiccant cartridges inside with all their original packaging and boxes but I put just the coins without their boxes and other mint packaging into jars and ammo cases with desiccant in them to consolidate and better protect just the coins.🧐
Mr_Spud
I agree except I think the demand will be widespread and focused mostly on nice BU and better. By this I mean MS-64 and better including very brilliant MS-63's. I believe it will be focused on nicer coins because low grade clad usually looks awful. In the old days I thought there would be a lot of awful looking low grade clad but much of it is gone now so the proportion of nicer stuff is much higher. Nicer stuff still looks a lot nicer, of course. Mint sets aren't really dead because many people aren't aware so many of these need to be cleaned. Even the retail friendly sets usually have most or all of the coins tarnished, they just aren't as dark. There's still not a lot of demand for intact sets but it's still growing.
Most sets are still being busted up for singles.
I do believe that nice Gems might grow a lot in demand as well. Even in mint sets true Gems can be highly elusive and they look a lot better than poorly struck and scratched coins. I would expect the popularity of collecting what I call "gemmy sets" to really take off. All it would take is thousands of collectors looking for high end MS-64 to low end MS-66 coins to really goose the values of many many dates of moderns and clads.
I believe the last of the sets are coming on the market now. This is hard to see because with the doubling of the price in the last year the supply has blipped much higher but the demand is continuing its slow growth. What's going to drive prices higher is the wholesale price of singles. Right now these are almost worthless still but retail prices are high enough that dealers have to maintain a stock. Once this glut of sets is worked off then there will be no source for singles thus forcing higher mint set prices.
Prices started higher way back in 2018 and so far it's been going on in slow motion (much to my surprise). But it appears the demand has caught and overtaken the supply so things may speed up a little bit now.
I sure wouldn't mind owning a stash of some of the coins I ignored over the years like MS-66 1982-P half dollars. I have still have some nice coins and some quantities on a few of them but there were a lot that were too hard to find or that just went under my radar. I should have looked at a lot more rolls and bags of '84 cents and some of the Ikes. A lot of moderns are tough in BU and true Gems can be almost impossible.
Yes. It's hard to make money on these because only one coin in ten thousand will provide substantial return.
I believe the top 10 or 15% are going to be in demand soon.
Good luck. I'd be interested in the results.
I'd predict it will save BU rolls but am less confident that it will stop the problem with mint sets since it seems like a chemical reaction. Later date sets are doing much better... ...so far.
Dont know 🙊
They can be dated but they can't be uncladded.
Apparently someone’s perception of the word as compared to mine is slightly different
Sure the definition is different but the feeling is the same.
Every time I open a so-called sealed mint set original discovery from an estate in someone’s attic I feel like I got abused and adultery would be a kind word in this case.
But nonetheless I keep coming back for more it’s never enough and it never will be.
Just the thought of the smell of that originally sealed glued package makes me want to call my old girlfriend from high school and tell her she was wrong.
That was supposed to be funny i’ll probably need to lay off the martinis today.
If mint sets are destroying the coins in them, why shouldn't they all be cut up and saved in archival holders? What is special about mint plastic and paper?
Nothing is special about the sets.
However there is a small demand for them and only a few of the early sets are nice enough to ship so they sell at very high prices. Most of this small demand is probably the result of collectors who are not aware that there are less expensive means of acquiring the coins. You can buy a typical set and clean the coins for only about double face value. As many as 25% of some dates can't be saved though.
Most sets are tarnished and the coins are being marketed at very high prices after being restored. Retail on the coins in a '69 mint set is as high as about $40, a complete set is $22 retail, and as low as about $8 wholesale.
There are a few individuals who collect intact mint sets but I don't think they are the ones creating the demand for retail sets.
The smell of the unopened yellow packages of five is just indescribable when you open them. It's like the minty fresh odor of money with no trace of "mint".
I'll have to go back and give them a good sniff. The other day I had some of the regular '77 white envelopes that smelled like an old wooden church or library took me back for a moment.