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Is mint sets the way to go?
atarian
Posts: 3,116 ✭
With it seeming that most people are buying coins for the grade than the coin is it wiser to start just buying mint sets and sending them in for gradeing hoping to get the 68 69 or 70 grades? you know you wont find those grades in the change esp teh older years . i see plenty of 62 63 and 64 mint sets and i wonder for $5 is it worth buying and grading?
Founder of the NDCCA. *WAM Count : 025. *NDCCA Database Count : 2,610. *You suck 6/24/10. 
In memory of Tiggar 5/21/1994 - 5/28/2010
In memory of Tiggar 5/21/1994 - 5/28/2010 0
Comments
Cheers,
Mike
But my advice would be to work on your 20th century type set, learn about coins, and then get into some coins from the 1800s.
Liberty: Parent of Science & Industry
<< <i>i see plenty of 62 63 and 64 mint sets and i wonder for $5 is it worth buying and grading? >>
For the years you specifically mentioned, better coins are to be had in OBW rolls.
Russ, NCNE
If you are talking buying a handful of e-bay sets, don't expect these results. Also, pre-1965 coins will run you$16 each.
<< <i>maybe ill get a 70 grade 62 63 or 64 penny >>
Good point--the people reviewing them before you were only looking for 66 and 67 grades. They left the 69/70 coins in there! he he he
<< <i>Another thing about mint sets, as compared to OBW, the mint sets should contain higher quality coins as they are struck with greater pressure than coins struck for commerce. >>
Really?
Russ, NCNE
Many collectors assume mint sets contain high quality gems. The 62-64 sets were of generally good quality, but not great. If you'll go look at the price guide, you'll see how likely you are to find what you seek. Generally speaking, the price guide reflects the amount of labor required to find the quality you hope to find. The coins are not rare. It is the investment of the searcher's time that you are paying for. If you are impatient, you'll likely look at a few dozen sets, pick out a few coins you like, submit them, and find that only a few were worth submitting. Before you spend several hundred dollars in grading fees, and too many days look at lots of picked over sets that have been examined by every collector in your city, spend a little time at one of the local shows and look (really look) at what holdered MS65 and better coins look like. You should consider borowing the MS grading video from the ANA. Membership is cheap, and they have a great library that you can borrow from. Happy hunting!
and it sets us apart from practitioners and consultants. Gregor
So if you're looking for quality business strikes from mint sets, don't buy in online auctions or online stores, as these coins have been picked over. Look at the coins before you buy. Or, as others recommended above, order a few dozen sets from the mint, pick out the very best coins, and just submit those for grading.
In my experience the best raw coins you can get directly from the Mint are the silver proof sets (and even there, occasionally you'll get a set that has a marred coin, so back it goes). Quality is more suspect in the mint sets.
Concerning greater "pressure" to strike mint sets, I thought that was applicable only to proofs.
There is variation from year to year in the preparation of dies and planchets and in how the
struck coins are handled and packaged. There is rarely much variation within a year except
for individual differences in the coins themselves. Quarter dies are used for about 30,000
strikes and then removed and placed in the regular high speed presses. The mint set presses
are usually run at lower speed and planchets are sometimes of better quality. Finished mint
set coins are washed and dried.
Dies will occasionally get some of the treatments that proof dies recieve.
Unfortunately these coins will usually pick up significant marking and while dies are new and
alignment is usually good, they can still come up lacking in strike, too.
With most of the post-1964 issues you'll need to look at about ten original sets to be confident
of finding a nice choice example of a date. In this case choice will range from about MS-64 to
MS-65. Few are much harder to find though Ikes will be only MS-63 in many cases.
A year ago it was relatively easy to find nice fresh original mint sets, but they are getting de-
cidedly picked over now. Probably about half of the wholesale sets are still original, but from
other sources they can be much tougher. This would especially apply to all Ikes, most halfs,
SMS's, 1970 sets, 1973 sets and most of the later dates.
These sets still constitute the primary source for mint state moderns and still command very
little attention. They are, however, beginning to increasingly trade at retail prices. These
prices tend to be double or triple bid and significant numbers of sets are going to retailers
and their customers. It is fascinating to see the prices that sets still sealed in the original
mailing boxes are bringing. There has also been some interest in gem sets. These are much
more common then mere chance would dictate but are also getting extremely hard to find.
by no means the be-all and end-all for collectors. Even though dies are used for a short per-
iod, the production of mint sets is usually dwarfed by the production of the regular issue
counterparts. Many more dies will be used to make the standard issue so many more varieties
will appear which aren't available in mint sets. Also there are quite a few business strike coins
which were simply never issued in mint sets.
While strikes are better in the sets, sometimes it's actually easier to find clean coins which
were from the regular production runs. This applies to Ikes and quite a few of other coins of
individual date/mm.
Unfortunately there was extremely little interest in these coins when they were issued and in
many cases very small numbers were saved. This has resulted in some varieties which are
very rare or non-existent in unc and coins which are rare without marking.
There is no one way to form a modern collection so there is no one way to slab coins for them.