Where do you find the good stuff?

Currin

Where do you guys find the higher quality new release coins? 1000 coin mint bags, 500 coin mint bags, mint sets, mint rolls, etc. I know some of you are reluctant to share your secrets because it could hurt your business, but the others that are willing to share... Where do you find those nice coins?

earlwbollinger

Yeah it is a secret, we don't want everyone getting in on the act.

Buy lots and lots of uncirculated mint sets and proof sets.
Cherry pick the good ones, sell off the sets you don't keep.
Luck has a lot to do with it too, it's sort of like, winning the lottery.

fcloud

I know I didn't find any in mint rolls and bags. I would guess mint and proof sets to be the best place. Good luck.

cladking

The best mint state examples of almost all coins made since 1968 are found in the mint sets.

This statement can with a little definition becomes more true. If strike is of the greatest import-
ance to you then mint sets are critical to finding most of these coins in the finest condition. If
clean fields are of more importance then many of these coins are more easily found in rolls. In
either case the finest coins are usually in the mint sets, but are frequently quite scarce.

In any case many of the moderns are not really available in rolls and sometimes clean coins are
not really available in mint sets. Even with strike there are a few cases where the better coins
come from rolls.

Collectors are generally well advised to seek coins from any source since the release of the regular
issue gems is difficult to predict and varieties usually don't appear in mint sets. Any given mint set
die probably has about the same chance of having an unusual variety as any other die, but there
are far fewer dies used for mint sets than for the production runs. Also even scarce mint set varie-
ties will be much more "common" simply because they come from mint sets. Case in point is the '81-P
small motto quarter. It is the only one of the 1977 to '84 small motto (type "d" reverse) which appears
in mint sets. Even though this is one of the tougher of the later date issues in circulation, it is by far
the most common in unc. It appears in only every 180th mint set. It is also the only date I've seen
in gem or in PL.

Many of the regular issue coins made since 1968 don't appear in mint sets or mint sets weren't issued
for that year.

The point being while one can't ignore mint sets in seeking complete gems sets of moderns it's equally
true that one can't ignore BU rolls when they can be found and even when they can't.