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cladking
Posts: 28,658 ✭✭✭✭✭
please ignore
love ike but it's a clad coin so it gets no respect. It's the only complete
entirely modern ('65-'98) set and people assume every date was set aside
in huge quantity. This probably isn't too far from the truth but there's been
a lot of water under the bridge in the last 30 years.
I remember hearing stories about the new coins and the massive hoarding
in the general media back when these came out in 1971. People were going
to the bank to buy them by the bag as an investment. There wasn't a lot of
activity with buying and selling in the hobby press but there was enough you
could tell it was going on. There was more widespread interest in the 40%
coins but the hoarding was going on in the clads. This continued all through
the ike run to a lesser extent in most cases.
But reality caught up with most of these erstwhile speculators; a thousand
dollars was a lot of money tied up in a non-performing asset. Demand was
sparse even though it was very widespread. You couldn't get much of a pre-
mium for much of any clad ike in 1978. There were quite a few collectors com-
pared to other moderns but the market for high grades didn't exist at all so
far as I could tell. It wasn't long though before this market started going. In
'79 there were most asuredly people actively buying and selling the gems. Ot-
hers were building sets to sell retail in magazines and coin shops.
Another factor causing people to dissipate their bags of these was quality. The
horror tories of opening these bags and finding coins that appeared no better
than VF because they had been "pre-circulated" at the mint to remove high rims
were rampant. Even fully original coins could be just horrid. Dates like the '71-P
just come awful and having a bag of some dates just assured you had 1000 ve-
ry ugly coins. These ugly coins have always been a drag on the modern markets.
Ironically there are some coins that are virtually impossible to locate even by the
roll but they are so ugly that the roll has no significant premium.
Over the years most of these bags have been busted up and either returned to
the banking system or sold on the market. There are almost certainly a few more
bags even though they are rarely seen. We're probably talking numbers between
perhaps 25 and 150 of each date (a few more bicentennial), but many of these will
not contain a single nice example (not even MS-63).
Mint sets won't be much of a savior for these since attrition on these dates is stag-
gering. A significant percentage of the few remaining sets has been checked for nice
Ikes.
This leaves collections for the main part but these don't really appear often. Most
of those seen are the sort put together for mass sales and will rarely contain very
much of interest. There simply aren't a lot of old time ike collections because there
simply weren't many old time ike collectors. Even when a choice collection does hit
the market, until recently the dealer was likely to just strip all the silver and "money"
coins and return the rest to the bank; gems and all.
These coins have been a lot of fun to collect for a long time. They are the last of the
first moderns that I started collecting but that was because I didn't know there were
any gems at all until 1978. Despite looking at thousand of the coins I never saw any-
thing even close to gem so I never paid them much attention. I've found nice choice
gems of every date now except the '71. My '72-D, '73-D, and '78 can probably be im-
proved without extreme cost.
It's true that many of these coins are simply gone forever. The FED doesn't keep such
things in storage, normally. The coins have been dispersed all over the world and usu-
ally after being severely abused and worn. They are taken home as souvenirs from cas-
inos or when recieved in change. The coins are in sock drawers and change jars every-
where. Many people keep a little dish of coins which are rarely seen and in addition to
the dateless buff and a few worn Kennedys there will always be a beat up ike in it too.
Everytime there's a fire or flood more of these are lost. They inadvertantly get knocked
in the garbage or are stolen in a breakin. People move and often have a moving sale
where "everything must go".
The ikes have just been too overlooked and too cheap for too long. Things that are tak-
en for granted normally don't survive. ikes are very taken for granted.
The coin market was very different from what it is today or had been a few short years before when the Ike dollar was issued in 1971. There was widespread collecting from circulation by a whole new generation of children starting in the early to mid-'50's. Most of this interest was in the traditional "pennies" and nickels but everything was getting a good going over by children and adults alike. There were huge numbers of kids and interest seemed to grow every year. Many started thinking that this demand would broaden and deepen so it was only natural that collectors and speculators would start saving rolls and bags of coins for future collectors.
love ike but it's a clad coin so it gets no respect. It's the only complete
entirely modern ('65-'98) set and people assume every date was set aside
in huge quantity. This probably isn't too far from the truth but there's been
a lot of water under the bridge in the last 30 years.
I remember hearing stories about the new coins and the massive hoarding
in the general media back when these came out in 1971. People were going
to the bank to buy them by the bag as an investment. There wasn't a lot of
activity with buying and selling in the hobby press but there was enough you
could tell it was going on. There was more widespread interest in the 40%
coins but the hoarding was going on in the clads. This continued all through
the ike run to a lesser extent in most cases.
But reality caught up with most of these erstwhile speculators; a thousand
dollars was a lot of money tied up in a non-performing asset. Demand was
sparse even though it was very widespread. You couldn't get much of a pre-
mium for much of any clad ike in 1978. There were quite a few collectors com-
pared to other moderns but the market for high grades didn't exist at all so
far as I could tell. It wasn't long though before this market started going. In
'79 there were most asuredly people actively buying and selling the gems. Ot-
hers were building sets to sell retail in magazines and coin shops.
Another factor causing people to dissipate their bags of these was quality. The
horror tories of opening these bags and finding coins that appeared no better
than VF because they had been "pre-circulated" at the mint to remove high rims
were rampant. Even fully original coins could be just horrid. Dates like the '71-P
just come awful and having a bag of some dates just assured you had 1000 ve-
ry ugly coins. These ugly coins have always been a drag on the modern markets.
Ironically there are some coins that are virtually impossible to locate even by the
roll but they are so ugly that the roll has no significant premium.
Over the years most of these bags have been busted up and either returned to
the banking system or sold on the market. There are almost certainly a few more
bags even though they are rarely seen. We're probably talking numbers between
perhaps 25 and 150 of each date (a few more bicentennial), but many of these will
not contain a single nice example (not even MS-63).
Mint sets won't be much of a savior for these since attrition on these dates is stag-
gering. A significant percentage of the few remaining sets has been checked for nice
Ikes.
This leaves collections for the main part but these don't really appear often. Most
of those seen are the sort put together for mass sales and will rarely contain very
much of interest. There simply aren't a lot of old time ike collections because there
simply weren't many old time ike collectors. Even when a choice collection does hit
the market, until recently the dealer was likely to just strip all the silver and "money"
coins and return the rest to the bank; gems and all.
These coins have been a lot of fun to collect for a long time. They are the last of the
first moderns that I started collecting but that was because I didn't know there were
any gems at all until 1978. Despite looking at thousand of the coins I never saw any-
thing even close to gem so I never paid them much attention. I've found nice choice
gems of every date now except the '71. My '72-D, '73-D, and '78 can probably be im-
proved without extreme cost.
It's true that many of these coins are simply gone forever. The FED doesn't keep such
things in storage, normally. The coins have been dispersed all over the world and usu-
ally after being severely abused and worn. They are taken home as souvenirs from cas-
inos or when recieved in change. The coins are in sock drawers and change jars every-
where. Many people keep a little dish of coins which are rarely seen and in addition to
the dateless buff and a few worn Kennedys there will always be a beat up ike in it too.
Everytime there's a fire or flood more of these are lost. They inadvertantly get knocked
in the garbage or are stolen in a breakin. People move and often have a moving sale
where "everything must go".
The ikes have just been too overlooked and too cheap for too long. Things that are tak-
en for granted normally don't survive. ikes are very taken for granted.
The coin market was very different from what it is today or had been a few short years before when the Ike dollar was issued in 1971. There was widespread collecting from circulation by a whole new generation of children starting in the early to mid-'50's. Most of this interest was in the traditional "pennies" and nickels but everything was getting a good going over by children and adults alike. There were huge numbers of kids and interest seemed to grow every year. Many started thinking that this demand would broaden and deepen so it was only natural that collectors and speculators would start saving rolls and bags of coins for future collectors.
Tempus fugit.
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