Where did the 1964 SMS coins come from?

MadMarty

Were they smuggles out by a mint employee? Did they come in 64 proof packs? Were they given to a choice few? Who has the info?

Thanks

Russ

They came from the US Mint.

Russ, NCNE

MadMarty

Maybe they didn't?

fcloud

I see someone has one for sale on e-bay

1964 SMS

keets

hey Tony

you beat me to that link!! i had seen the thread and just spotted the coin in an SMS search. i think that will sell, though it will probably go the lenght of the auction and not BIN. all the others that i've seen listed were at Teletrade Fishing Expedition auctions and never sold. i would imagine this one is owned by a different person but might sell to the other guy since he seemed to be trying to establish a base price with the aforementioned auctions.

i'll PM cladking to see if he can give us a bit more history on these than i could contribute.

al h.

cladking

Superior offered them for sale in about '93 with little explanation of their origin. If
memory serves they had about ten complete sets and a few singles.

It is assumed that these were made in 1965 during the date freeze and the mint was
experimenting for a suitable replacement for the mint and proof sets. They did a large
number of experiments with the clads and apparently it was easy enough to try the
silver issues too. The early clad SMS's come with varying planchets, die preparations,
and techniques.

DHeath

TomB says the story as related to him was that they were given to a celebrity collector by the mint director. They are specimen strikes, and I believe are the trial finish for the 65 SMS coin. The half has a much different surface than either the 64 MS or PR coins. These sets surface from time to time, and CK has hinted he thinks many coins produced by the mint for experimental purposes bore the 1964 date. Rumor has it the sets number from 10 to 20.

DHeath

CK, you posted while I typed. For those that missed the last half on TT, I attached a pic.

Russ

The one that Don posted is an NGC MS69 labeled as "Specimen", and was was bid to $15,000 when it was listed on Teletrade, ending as "not sold".

Russ, NCNE

CapAnson

So If the mint wanted to do without premium coins by eliminating proofs, why did they bother with SMS coins?

dpoole

CapAnson,

THAT'S the question! Looks like a typical bit of government boondoggle to me--"fix" the over-hoarding of coins on the one hand, and undo it with the other. The whole exercise was dumb, IMHO.

Maybe others have information that would render the whole exercise more rational that it appears to me.

keets

hey David and Cap

i think the changes that took place at the Mint in the mid-1960's were as much a reflection of the political climate of the day as anything. consider that we were trying to get over the Kennedy assassination and just getting revved up in Vietnam with a control freak like Johnson at the helm and Nixon waiting in the wings. for me, the period from 1963-1976 is one of our country's darkest and most paranoid eras. there was suspicion about everything including the hoarding of coins.

al h.

cladking

<< <i>So If the mint wanted to do without premium coins by eliminating proofs, why did they bother with SMS coins? >>



It was a very political time in the hobby. The mint and Congress blamed coin collectors for
the severe coin shortage of the time. Both were doing everything they could to punish col-
lectors. Likely they did understand that the hobby wasn't really the fundamental problem
but the hobby was certainly the most obvious problem. This was right at the peak of the
roll and bag boom. Millions of collectors were collecting the late date coins and the hobby
had been growing for years with the baby boomers at their peak years to start collecting.
Many people were speculating on the future demand for late date coins by buying bags and
rolls of most anything they could find. The hobby papers like Coin World were full of ads of
companies selling bags of late date coins. They were just too highly visible while the real
culprits weren't. The mint announced early that there would be no proof and mint sets. There
was a howl from the hobby which prompted the mint to search for means to placate collectors
and the SMS's were born.

DHeath

In 1966, my grandfathers coin collection consisted of a Hav-a-tampa box with about a dozen 64 JFKs, an 1893-CC Morgan, a 92 Columbian Exposition half, and one SLQ. He valued them all equally. The JFKs were silver you know.