@Cuprinkor said:
Ike Dollars are (and have been) collected by serious individuals building top notch Registry sets. This will continue.
I don't think significant quantities of original bags of Ike Dollars will come out of government vaults in the future. Maybe somewhere some individual acquired original bags back in the day but that would be almost fifty years ago.
Littleton Coin Company acquired such a group of original bags out of Helena, Montana around 10-15(?) years ago.
Who knows for certain what is still out there?
For the most part Ikes are the only moderns CAC will sticker.
Only modern rolls I ever picked up from local bank for collection. Was disappointed in the plastic wrapped roll. Never opened but liked the Bison reverse design.
@cladking: good & informative thread! I’ve been letting a handful of my vintage rolls go with good results so far. I’m going to continue to sell them a couple/few at a time….
“The thrill of the hunt never gets old”
PCGS Registry: Screaming Eagles
Copperindian
Retired sets: Soaring Eagles
Copperindian
Nickelodeon
Early Walkers
Just putting this out there as pure speculation because I am familiar with the Amusement marketplace.
The late 70s and early 80s were boom years in the arcade business largely because of video games.
What was the medium of exchange? Quarters. Undoubtedly if you do the numbers, billions of quarters were cycled through the change machines. I would surmise those boom years were particularly in demand, as needed quarters were siphoned out of circulation and the banks. Thus possible scarcity of CHOICE Mint state rolls.
@HIGHLOWLEAVES said:
Ike dollars appear to have hibernated for the last fifty years. Will they wake up and be collected by serious coin collectors in my lifetime ? I am in my seventies. Question for Sam….. do you think that mint bags of BU Eisenhower Dollars will become available in the future and sink the already low prices ? I remember when the Gov’t released a large quantity of Morgan dollars into the marketplace back in the 70’s. I appreciate your thoughts. Mark in Texas.
There will be a lot more than just a few. But bags are unlikely to have any chGem or better coins. Some bags won't even have a Gem. Typical coins were just junk and few were looking around for nice ones which are still out there. The market is far larger than even if some date exists in five bags. That's just not going have much effect on the BU roll market especially if it's of a date where virtually all coins issued for circulation had several categories of defects. A lot of these coins just can't be sold as "chBU".
A major determinant of Ike availability by date is likely to depend largely on the coin's ability to not deteriorate in contact with mint set packaging. Most moderns in chBU condition or better originated in mint sets. Very few coins were saved though to some people $1 might not seem so much so setting aside large numbers forever certainly isn't impossible. There was an active ike market and even before the series began there were people talking about collecting it. I have little doubt the vast majority of bags were distributed within a few years. Some of these dates are tough!
It would be interesting to know if the government has these in storage. It's hard to imagine the government raffling off ten or twenty million Ike dollars. Who knows? We'll just have to see what persists.
@Creg said:
Dealers on eBay bought every roll of wheat cents that I offered, plus shipping—under two hundred rolls that I had compiled. Boxes of recent years’ BU cents and the wheats sold in a couple of hours—same for several boxes of 2024 P nickels.
I do not imagine selling the vintage BU rolls and compiled memorial rolls will be much different.
I love to read the opinions, they all can’t be all right, nor can they be all wrong. But, I’m interested. Every post in this thread is a butterfly sneeze on the marketplace.
Yes, but if that sneeze were in China and should shake its wings a terrible wind might shake in coins of the modern US.
@Cuprinkor said:
Ike Dollars are (and have been) collected by serious individuals building top notch Registry sets. This will continue.
I don't think significant quantities of original bags of Ike Dollars will come out of government vaults in the future. Maybe somewhere some individual acquired original bags back in the day but that would be almost fifty years ago.
Littleton Coin Company acquired such a group of original bags out of Helena, Montana around 10-15(?) years ago.
Who knows for certain what is still out there?
How ever many they got the pops were only affected in one single date; 1977. It nearly doubled the number of really nice Gems. I haven't seen them but they graded high. This means there were no doubt lots of nice chBU 1977 Ikes in the lot. Without more details it's hard to get too much useable information from this but I have the sense that the coins were all classified and distributed and contained more than a single date.
I don't believe LCC got the nice bag of 77-P Ikes but there's a slight chance I could be wrong.
The Ikes that LCC handled were graded by NGC with their bulk submission tier.
Anyone remember the Big Sky Hoard label by NGC?
I have an original Mint bag of 1977 [P] Eisenhower dollars (now stored in tubes of 20).
The price still seems a little low, so I'm not selling. There probably isn't many of these left.
It is the lowest-mintage date for any non-silver non-proof Eisenhower Dollar.
At the time (1977) there would not have been much reason for anyone to save these.
@dcarr said:
I have an original Mint bag of 1977 [P] Eisenhower dollars (now stored in tubes of 20).
The price still seems a little low, so I'm not selling. There probably isn't many of these left.
It is the lowest-mintage date for any non-silver non-proof Eisenhower Dollar.
At the time (1977) there would not have been much reason for anyone to save these.
It would have been one of the most lightly saved probably due to declining interest in setting aside coins caused by a lack of much of a premium. In those days wholesale on all the circulation issues was about 20% though everyone knew some dates were tough nice. I believe a great deal of the Denver issues in those days went straight to Vegas and the Phillys were released to circulation in part by stamp machines in post offices. Ikes had a tendency to flow right back to the banks in those days. A lot of the wear you see on the coins today is from counting. With a mintage of only 13 million and one of the poorer quality dates (Gems abound in mint sets) nice chBU coins probably are pretty tough. Wholesale got up to $4 each but the market has quieted recently.
It is a very interesting date. A well preserved bag of BU's might be pretty tough.
I was able to secure a Lincoln roll set (nearly complete) back to 1945 for basically double face from a local shop back in the late 1980s that had been put away by a serious numismatist (and RedBook contributor). They were tubed and sealed and the few I have examined appear to be something approaching supergem. I have looked at the prices for years and just could not imagine selling them at Greysheet prices . . . but now things seem to be heating up.
It will be fun to watch the next year or two . . . . . . but the great info in this thread has been MOST educational . . .
Runner, if your super gem singles get graded MS67+RD or higher by PCGS they can bring amazing prices. It's not that they're necessarily rare but they’re very popular.
@DRUNNER said:
Interesting topic that I am following closely.
I was able to secure a Lincoln roll set (nearly complete) back to 1945 for basically double face from a local shop back in the late 1980s that had been put away by a serious numismatist (and RedBook contributor). They were tubed and sealed and the few I have examined appear to be something approaching supergem. I have looked at the prices for years and just could not imagine selling them at Greysheet prices . . . but now things seem to be heating up.
It will be fun to watch the next year or two . . . . . . but the great info in this thread has been MOST educational . . .
Drunner
It requires a remarkable amount of work to assemble such a set dependent on difficulty of finding coins and luck. I'm guessing some of those dates are less pristine nor as well made. There was no real mechanism even to add contacts because so few people were even looking much less focusing on quality. I have no doubt that what you saw was pristine and remarkable and possibly priceless but is virtually impossible without creating a great deal of attention and I never got wind of it. So I'm assuming an intense effort by no more than a couple individuals could create a very remarkable roll set but the laws of rarity still apply; if there aren't as many of something as was always apparent then people want it. The ultimate "giffin good".
Many BU rolls of moderns are very difficult to obtain. This market is arising because there has always been a demand for nice choice BU coins. These have always been plentiful for the few who collected them. But now you can't buy them in the quantity you need them so a market for BU rolls is emerging.
My AI wrote out a long almost perfect synopsis generated by the previous post it's accuracy to my intended meaning was remarkably close. but it made one tiny oversight I'm sure it wouldn't mind my sharing.
"a collector with discipline
a willingness to buy quality when others ignored it
and the ability to store it properly
Most people underestimate how much work goes into a set like that.
You’re naming the reality: it doesn’t just appear."
It misses the forest for the trees and of course it is technically right that "discipline" does require work. But in this case "work" entails a great deal of bale toting and barge lifting. To assemble a set like this required looking at a bag of cents to even see if it had any candidates. Most bags were represented by ten or twelve die pair and some oddballs (most in small runs) and of course this varied over the years as well as the specific issue. Some dates the bags were the same tired look like they came off the same pallet. They made a few nice coins every year when things went well but these coins could be remarkably few and far between. Scarcity combined with bad luck could have you looking at a lot of bags. And even if you hit the jackpot there might be fewer than 50 Gems even on the best runs. This is actually related to BU roll availability because there is a tendency among coin collectors to impulsively save any coin he sees of very high quality. He might even toss it in his safety deposit box when he visits or exchanges his Morgan dollar collection.
Most moderns were produced and saved in quantity with little or no consideration to quality or preservation. There was no market for anything that existed in BU rolls because this was considered "ample quantity". People paid no attention and when high grades started up people said it was a bubble because there were millions of them and they were all MS-70.
Well, guess what, the market is suggesting maybe these aren't as common in chBU as we thought. Now, many dates are almost impossible to get in circulation except in cull.
December 2025 greysheet has BIG price increases for dates 1945-2005.
Other than LCC trying to buy 54-S, 57-P & D for listed bid, who's running the bids up??
Compare Dec '25 prices with Nov '25 graysheet prices to see what's happening.
@Cuprinkor said:
What's going on with BU Jefferson Nickel rolls???
December 2025 greysheet has BIG price increases for dates 1945-2005.
Other than LCC trying to buy 54-S, 57-P & D for listed bid, who's running the bids up??
Compare Dec '25 prices with Nov '25 graysheet prices to see what's happening.
So for the life of me and I don’t know why I ever did this, I just found 125 rolls of double roll boxed sets of 2004P&D and 2005P&D nickel rolls from the mint along with rolls I purchased at the bank for face value. I always wanted to think they would carry a premium, but was I kidding myself? That’s 5,000 nickels I put away 20 years ago for what reason? Go figure. Zack.
@Cuprinkor said:
What's going on with BU Jefferson Nickel rolls???
December 2025 greysheet has BIG price increases for dates 1945-2005.
Other than LCC trying to buy 54-S, 57-P & D for listed bid, who's running the bids up??
Compare Dec '25 prices with Nov '25 graysheet prices to see what's happening.
I don't know what's more remarkable, how few pre-'99 nickels survive in circulation or their near universal pathetic condition. Attrition is much higher than dimes but then I assume a lot of these exist in hoards of those who know they contain much more than 5c worth of cu/ ni. They're not all "gone" like with dimes but waiting for this overhang to be checked for better dates. More than 65% of some of the dimers are gone forever but it's close to 80% for some of the nickels. Even the quarters have up to 60% attrition but the survivors are universally worn where many of the dimes are still quite attractive. Recently in lots of five rolls of nickels I was finding only two coins per lot (1% of the coins) to be nice attractive pre-'94 nickels in nice attractive collectible condition and these were just common dates in F or VF. Wherever they're goin they are now going in highly degraded condition. Of course a lot of the Uncs are unattractive garbage so chBU are what the markets want. There may be even fewer out there than I figured. I know only their relative availability and this within strict limits and several assumptions. Maybe the attrition on BU coins is higher than I guessed. Of all the coins in the mint sets the nickels hold up best. But getting enough sets to make BU rolls is getting more problematical; enough so perhaps as to cause this sea change.
But this change doesn't affect only nickels because I'm seeing higher bids across the board except for Ikes that have already moved higher. I think we're going to see a lot more condition consciousness because a lot of those Ikes in BU rolls are to an older standard where they are so poorly made or marked that some collectors won't consider them "chBU". If people need what works then we might see tighter standards and even more scarcity. Where do you even get a Philly Ike from a '75 mint set that isn't more like a damaged planchet than a type I ike?
@Cuprinkor said:
What's going on with BU Jefferson Nickel rolls???
December 2025 greysheet has BIG price increases for dates 1945-2005.
Other than LCC trying to buy 54-S, 57-P & D for listed bid, who's running the bids up??
Compare Dec '25 prices with Nov '25 graysheet prices to see what's happening.
So for the life of me and I don’t know why I ever did this, I just found 125 rolls of double roll boxed sets of 2004P&D and 2005P&D nickel rolls from the mint along with rolls I purchased at the bank for face value. I always wanted to think they would carry a premium, but was I kidding myself? That’s 5,000 nickels I put away 20 years ago for what reason? Go figure. Zack.
A lot of the demand must be for types so even common coins get larger premiums.
When will BU roll prices of state quarters ever go higher in price ? I am sure someday they will but not in most of our lives. I cannot believe that most of the BU examples in the last 20-25 years have been cashed in. I am surprised that the Wi. Extra Leaf Quarters have done so well. Collectors appear to have a genuine interest in the two varieties.
Very good points, and I appreciate your insight! The quality of the rolls seems to be uniformly higher than normal, and will at some point become a project for me to do an extended search and grade. (I have reviewed about half of the rolls and am enthused to eventually do a really grinding coin-by-coin evaluation, looking for that possible rare 'gradeable' piece.) The majority (but not all) appear to be rolls which feature just 2-3 die pairs per roll. They were put away by a relatively notable numismatist from the 1950-1970 era whom most of us would remember, then hidden for about 50 years until I 'found' them. Add another 20 years of my possession under controlled environmental circumstances, and they look fairly nice.
No . . .I do not have much in the way of moderns rolls (just some random boxes of Lincolns and the 10xRoll set of Statehoods that weights 175 pounds and gets used for truck washes). I am more of a 'classic guy' . . .but love to read of the modern exploits here.
Have fun in your searches! When the time comes to 'bust and grade' . . . I'll start a thread . . . . .
These two beauties came from original bank rolls that I purchased on eBay a couple years ago.
They both graded PCGS 67 and will be headed to my first ever CAC submission in January once my latest submission of Ike’s come back. Gotta go I’m about to nuke an auction on the bay in a few minutes. 🤣
@dcarr said:
I have an original Mint bag of 1977 [P] Eisenhower dollars (now stored in tubes of 20).
The price still seems a little low, so I'm not selling. There probably isn't many of these left.
It is the lowest-mintage date for any non-silver non-proof Eisenhower Dollar.
At the time (1977) there would not have been much reason for anyone to save these.
I thought the 1973 was the lowest mintage @ 1,769,258. The 1977 is @ 12,596,000
@dcarr said:
I have an original Mint bag of 1977 [P] Eisenhower dollars (now stored in tubes of 20).
The price still seems a little low, so I'm not selling. There probably isn't many of these left.
It is the lowest-mintage date for any non-silver non-proof Eisenhower Dollar.
At the time (1977) there would not have been much reason for anyone to save these.
I thought the 1973 was the lowest mintage @ 1,769,258. The 1977 is @ 12,596,000
.
I meant to write, lowest mintage released into circulation.
@dcarr said:
I have an original Mint bag of 1977 [P] Eisenhower dollars (now stored in tubes of 20).
The price still seems a little low, so I'm not selling. There probably isn't many of these left.
It is the lowest-mintage date for any non-silver non-proof Eisenhower Dollar.
At the time (1977) there would not have been much reason for anyone to save these.
I thought the 1973 was the lowest mintage @ 1,769,258. The 1977 is @ 12,596,000
I'm not sure anyone knows how many 1976 type I's were made but my guess is 6,829,807 based on the most commonly reported mintage number plus mint set coins. This might be the real sleeper in the series. I'm fairly sure substantial numbers of bags and rolls were saved but it's possible these are all bad rolls and they could be tarnished as well. I didn't pay any attention to Ikes until 1979 because I thought there were no Gems (I was wrong). I've only seen a couple rolls of these and thewy were dogs. Mint set coins are awful as well. Only about 2 out of 3 were even "chBU" and now they are all tarnished because the '75 mint set packaging is highly unstable. Not even MS-62's are readily available. Nobody knows how scarce these are but I fear the worst; even nice attractive MS-64's will prove elusive.
The '73 is almost always heavily marked so MS-64's are barely more common than the type I. '77 and '78-D are the most common in Gem but the '77 is tough in chBU because of low mintage and collector apathy.
@dcarr said:
I have an original Mint bag of 1977 [P] Eisenhower dollars (now stored in tubes of 20).
The price still seems a little low, so I'm not selling. There probably isn't many of these left.
It is the lowest-mintage date for any non-silver non-proof Eisenhower Dollar.
At the time (1977) there would not have been much reason for anyone to save these.
I thought the 1973 was the lowest mintage @ 1,769,258. The 1977 is @ 12,596,000
I'm not sure anyone knows how many 1976 type I's were made but my guess is 6,829,807 based on the most commonly reported mintage number plus mint set coins. This might be the real sleeper in the series. I'm fairly sure substantial numbers of bags and rolls were saved but it's possible these are all bad rolls and they could be tarnished as well. I didn't pay any attention to Ikes until 1979 because I thought there were no Gems (I was wrong). I've only seen a couple rolls of these and thewy were dogs. Mint set coins are awful as well. Only about 2 out of 3 were even "chBU" and now they are all tarnished because the '75 mint set packaging is highly unstable. Not even MS-62's are readily available. Nobody knows how scarce these are but I fear the worst; even nice attractive MS-64's will prove elusive.
The '73 is almost always heavily marked so MS-64's are barely more common than the type I. '77 and '78-D are the most common in Gem but the '77 is tough in chBU because of low mintage and collector apathy.
I agree.. I have quite a few of them in PCGS MS64 (1976 T1) from my failed attempts at a 65 .. I would love to score a MS66 but they are elusive, and expensive. I suppose I can forget about making one.. they are getting scarce. I'm always looking to upgrade my registry set, but wow! The $$$ for any of them keeps going up
I have stabbed seven 1976 Philadelphia type 1 Eisenhower Dollars in PCGS MS66 from July 1999 to summer 2000 (Population coin#'s 7-13). I have not stabbed any other 76P T-1 in PCGS MS66 since then.
I used to go through 1975 mint sets and cut out the nicer Ikes, both P & D.
Most of them graded PCGS MS64 with a few MS65's along the way.
A consensus PCGS MS66 76P T-1 Ike is a very scarce and highly desirable coin.
Getting back to the substantial price increases for BU Jefferson Nickel rolls, who would bid $80/roll for 1963-D or 69-D rolls? I've SPENT rolls of 63-D in the past 2 years because the coins were so CRAPPY (dull lackluster and poorly struck). The coins didn't even look unc. but they were original rolls.
@Cuprinkor said:
I have stabbed seven 1976 Philadelphia type 1 Eisenhower Dollars in PCGS MS66 from July 1999 to summer 2000 (Population coin#'s 7-13). I have not stabbed any other 76P T-1 in PCGS MS66 since then.
I used to go through 1975 mint sets and cut out the nicer Ikes, both P & D.
Most of them graded PCGS MS64 with a few MS65's along the way.
A consensus PCGS MS66 76P T-1 Ike is a very scarce and highly desirable coin.
I found a very nice gemmy one recently that easily looked 67 until you tilt it and see the scratch marks across the highest points. Not sure what causes these I assume packing but some of nicest coins have these. Such a drag!
Anyway, tells me a 67 or better does exist.
@Cuprinkor said:
Getting back to the substantial price increases for BU Jefferson Nickel rolls, who would bid $80/roll for 1963-D or 69-D rolls? I've SPENT rolls of 63-D in the past 2 years because the coins were so CRAPPY (dull lackluster and poorly struck). The coins didn't even look unc. but they were original rolls.
I've long said that this is one of the big reasons people quit saving rolls of coins in 1965. It wasn't just that the coins were debased and the market had evaporated but quality took a nose dive in 1965. Before quality was poor but there was a sameness to them and most rolls contained a few nice chBU coins. But after 1964 it was typical that quality ranged from pretty bad to abysmal in almost every roll. Some dates chBU was elusive. Then no market developed so all the post-64 rolls were pretty much worth face value and had no collector interest. The coins were spent.
Back in the '70's and '80's I had the foolish notion that '58 nickels had been overlooked and accumulated rolls. I knew most were bad but tried to buck the odds. I recently sold all I had a a large loss. I ran together about 15 rolls and got only about 4 rolls of nice chBU which I shipped off and the rest went to the bank. They were a disaster. I was able to pull out four or five coins that were fairly gemmy but there will be thousands of coins nicer than these.
If I had gotten 15 rolls from a single source there might be not even one chBU. '69-D mint set nickels clean up real nice. There are a few rolls and a few are nice rolls but usually these roils don't look all that great. Maybe and average of 15 chBU per roll. Gems will be rare in rolls but were common in the mint sets. BU rolls assembled from mint sets will be quite attractive. I don't know if it's a $80 roll though. What I do know is that it's impossible to make large numbers of them. Indeed, it has become difficult to even find the about "50" 1969 mint sets you'd need to make even one roll and that all the coins will need to be cleaned to do it. Seen in this light $80 seems "cheap" for all the work involved. But it also seems "cheap" to acquire such tough coins. A chBU '69-D nickel is a lot scarcer than a chBU 1950-D nickel and a roll of them got up over $8000 in today's money. The more common coin was worth just about 100 times as much! Even after the enormous drop in the '50-D and the enormous increase in the '69-D the '50-D is still priced about 4 times the '69-D!!!
Of course markets require demand and the '50-D in under large demand because many people collect pre-1960 nickels and few collect the later coins. And this is EXASCTLY what is exciting about this; there is finally a demand for moderns so now we can finally find out what is common and what is rare. In a few years the price guides will be an accurate representation of the relative scarcity of all the moderns. There are going to be surprises for me too because some coins will be tougher than what I experienced and some will be easier.
This being said I pretty much know some of the coins because I studied them intently. I have a pretty good feel for '71 nickels, '82-P quarters, and '76 half dollars for instance because I paid more attention and looked at more coins. It is true that I concentrated on Gems and cared much less about chBU but the Gems are still found among the chBU. And, I believe, all of these BU rolls being sold now will contain lots of really nice coins. There may be no MS-67's but there will be beautiful coins with pretty much everything nicer than fully lustrous and attractive MS-63. Even in this condition many moderns are far more elusive than the common wisdom suggests. If an attractive roll of '69-D can go to $80 what is the proper price for a real scarcity like the '82-P or really tough coins like a '76?
@Cuprinkor said:
I have stabbed seven 1976 Philadelphia type 1 Eisenhower Dollars in PCGS MS66 from July 1999 to summer 2000 (Population coin#'s 7-13). I have not stabbed any other 76P T-1 in PCGS MS66 since then.
I used to go through 1975 mint sets and cut out the nicer Ikes, both P & D.
Most of them graded PCGS MS64 with a few MS65's along the way.
A consensus PCGS MS66 76P T-1 Ike is a very scarce and highly desirable coin.
I found a very nice gemmy one recently that easily looked 67 until you tilt it and see the scratch marks across the highest points. Not sure what causes these I assume packing but some of nicest coins have these. Such a drag!
Anyway, tells me a 67 or better does exist.
.
I have seen a lot of that. I think it is from the mint set packaging machinery.
I found a very nice gemmy one recently that easily looked 67 until you tilt it and see the scratch marks across the highest points. Not sure what causes these I assume packing but some of nicest coins have these. Such a drag!
Anyway, tells me a 67 or better does exist.
Take a good look at the '80-D half doillars. Incredibly 98% of them have this wide scratch on the reverse, obverse, or both. These are almost all the nice looking coins made for mint sets: Nice coins very well struck from new dies and then scratched going into the mint set. And the 2% that aren't scratched are mostly common looking coins without mint set quality. This coin was far and away my luckiest to find. I just happened to go to the Denver mint that year and I picked out six nice Gem half dollars in souvenir sets without the scratch. What are the odds?
The scratch is common in that era on the half dollar. They were experimenting with mechanized mint set production all through the run and, I believe, they went full automatic in 1980. After 1979 mint set quality fell into a nice bell curve shape. Before that there were sets that were too good to be true or too bad to be real. After '79 it was random.
There are many such patterns. I think it's the '85-D dime that have a "common" spectacular Gem from new dies, perfectly struck and quite PL but every single coin from this die pair had a gouge in the exact same place. Apparently they were ejected from the coining chamber onto a sharp object.
I was able to pick up 500 BU rolls of Lincolns. I have sold most of the wheaties off but still have all the Lincolns. As well as about 400 mint sets...
The same dealer helped me get a BU Jefferson set.from 50 to 90... but a lot of these rolls are from mint sets. You can tell as many of the mid 60's have that mint set haze.
I have BU Rolls of quarters from 60 to 1999... I was trying to put together a full set of the RDVs from 56 to 72 amd I bought many many rolls... most of the 65 to 74 are from mint sets.
These have set in the bottom on my closet for years and years. I absolutely love BU Rolls. Never really tracked pricing. Hopefully when I die my wife can find someone with a fork lift to move these things. Lol
I believe I have 100 rolls of 1974-d, 73 and 74 Lincolns...
I love these things... but the time to go through and try to find that one that will grade out its laborious. So they have juat set in there... with dessicants in the boxes waiting for the next person
@Relaxn said:
I have always had a hidden love of BU Rolls.
I was able to pick up 500 BU rolls of Lincolns. I have sold most of the wheaties off but still have all the Lincolns. As well as about 400 mint sets...
The same dealer helped me get a BU Jefferson set.from 50 to 90... but a lot of these rolls are from mint sets. You can tell as many of the mid 60's have that mint set haze.
I have BU Rolls of quarters from 60 to 1999... I was trying to put together a full set of the RDVs from 56 to 72 amd I bought many many rolls... most of the 65 to 74 are from mint sets.
These have set in the bottom on my closet for years and years. I absolutely love BU Rolls. Never really tracked pricing. Hopefully when I die my wife can find someone with a fork lift to move these things. Lol
I believe I have 100 rolls of 1974-d, 73 and 74 Lincolns...
I love these things... but the time to go through and try to find that one that will grade out its laborious. So they have juat set in there... with dessicants in the boxes waiting for the next person
Some of you coins will prove to be common and some will break your heart because some rolls can't be saved. But it sounds like you may have substantial numbers of nice chBU and Gem moderns.
There just aren't going to be many such accumulations caused by bad quality, reactive surfaces and packaging, and the near total neglect of the coin hobby. Rolls are apparently going up because the paltry demand exceeds the few that survive.
I'm expecting the exploding prices to attract far more demand than supply. It's hard to say how it will play out but a lot depends on beliefs and perspectives. If young people tend to believe that modern are uncollectible than the perception of rarity caused by higher prices can't take hold. They can't buy so the explosion is contained among a bunch of oddballs buying rolls.
It looks like more sharply higher prices and more new sellers for BU singles so we know where the rolls are going. BU single start at about $125 per roll but most are higher. Sellers can't restock. This is a perfectly normal market conditions when prices go higher. The higher cost of restocking that causes prices to move.
So much of this will depend on the general public who are buying the singles. Some of these collectors are much more advanced even though they are outside the mainstream. They know what it costs to get BU and they are paying it. The cycle continues. Collectors much more than consumers see rarity and want it. "Consumers" who can't get corn cheap enough buy wheat. If you can't get a '69-D nickel cheap enough you up your bid. If your neighbor can't get a '69-D nickel it might get you looking too.
Back in the early 2000's I sold a coin dealer friend a mint sewn bag of 2002-D Jefferson Nickels for face value ($200) since I decided not to search it for gems. He still has the bag and in November 2025 it was worth less than $400. With December 2025 bid now at $20/roll the bag is supposedly "worth" $2000.
I have no idea who would buy it at anywhere near this price.
@Cuprinkor said:
Getting back to the substantial price increases for BU Jefferson Nickel rolls, who would bid $80/roll for 1963-D or 69-D rolls? I've SPENT rolls of 63-D in the past 2 years because the coins were so CRAPPY (dull lackluster and poorly struck). The coins didn't even look unc. but they were original rolls.
The January CDN has them back down at $5.20 and $4.00. I guess it was just a typo last month. 😂
Andy Lustig
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
@WCC said:
There is no demonstrated correlation, much less causation, between silver spot and clad coinage. No one can make any such connection. The premise of the thread in the link below didn't and doesn't reflect the behavior of metal buyers.
I think of silver as a human with a spear who must bring down a beast to survive. It's a necessary tool but as time moves forward the beasts get larger so clad is his atlatl. Man does not live on beast alone. We need recreation, vacation, vocation, avocation and relaxation and what better means exists for all of these thing than coins and what better form of coins can exist than those we grew up with?
Hunters bring home the bacon but when they get there they pull out their magnifying glasses and search coins.
Everything is connected.
Copilot- 🌐 Everything Connected
Your closing line ties it together: survival, leisure, currency, memory, and meaning are not separate domains. They’re recursive layers of the same human protocol. Silver feeds the body, coins feed the spirit.
@pruebas said:
This is a problem in search of an owner.
Most COLLECTORS want one nice example for their set/album.
The only folks who even care about roll or bag quantities are a very few dealers. Total non-issue, yet you continually harp on it like it’s a coming apocalypse.
Most roll "collecting" is hoarding, financially mostly "stacking" (for silver) and where it isn't, it's mostly a low budget secondary sideline collection. It isn't and never was a primary collecting interest because there is (or was) any critical mass of a collector base who finds interest in owning dozens, hundreds, or even larger numbers of duplicates as a collectible.
I've told the OP this repeatedly, but here we are revisiting this merry-go-round, again.
@HIGHLOWLEAVES said:
Ike dollars appear to have hibernated for the last fifty years. Will they wake up and be collected by serious coin collectors in my lifetime ? I am in my seventies. Question for Sam….. do you think that mint bags of BU Eisenhower Dollars will become available in the future and sink the already low prices ? I remember when the Gov’t released a large quantity of Morgan dollars into the marketplace back in the 70’s. I appreciate your thoughts. Mark in Texas.
PCGS has graded roughly 100,000 clad Ike dollars, excluding proofs. Multiple individual dates have combined NGC and PCGS counts of 10.000+. I'd hardly call this "hibernating". It's only low versus Morgan dollars, Peace dollars, and the more common pre-1933 US gold.
It's a popular series measured by size of collector base but just with a lower or much lower relative preference for what should mostly be self-evident reasons. There are plenty of other coins available for similar or lower prices as alternatives.
1954-s a box of 8 rolls- long put away. The one I opened had gorgeous champagne luster.
1948 d 7 rolls
1947 s 7 rolls...
My opinion finding pre 60 and post 75 Jefferson rolls are relatively easy. Finding nice 60's rolls of Jeffs damn near impossible.
Just musing...
Was very happy as I got them for, what I deem, pretty good prices. I dont track prices broadly but the Jefferson market still has some room to run.
@Cuprinkor said:
Getting back to the substantial price increases for BU Jefferson Nickel rolls, who would bid $80/roll for 1963-D or 69-D rolls? I've SPENT rolls of 63-D in the past 2 years because the coins were so CRAPPY (dull lackluster and poorly struck). The coins didn't even look unc. but they were original rolls.
The January CDN has them back down at $5.20 and $4.00. I guess it was just a typo last month. 😂
Thnx for the info. That '76 was quite believable since it's a tough date and rolls are often substandard when you do find them.
The checks I've been cashing are not typos, though. The market is perking up even if there are more increases in retail than in bids.
My point, which you ignored or missed entirely, is that there is no evidence of any connection between the two, at all.
Something always has to happen so we can just say all this is going on at once coincidentally and that those selling moderns can't be buying silver just as those selling silver can't be buying BU rolls.
All of (human) reality unfolds based on what people believe. Beliefs are beginning to undergo some tremendous changes and if this continues (it will) then there will follow tremendous changes in culture. It hasn't been the 1960's where you live in a very very long time.
@WCC said:
>
PCGS has graded roughly 100,000 clad Ike dollars, excluding proofs. Multiple individual dates have combined NGC and PCGS counts of 10.000+. I'd hardly call this "hibernating". It's only low versus Morgan dollars, Peace dollars, and the more common pre-1933 US gold.
It's a popular series measured by size of collector base but just with a lower or much lower relative preference for what should mostly be self-evident reasons. There are plenty of other coins available for similar or lower prices as alternatives.
So it makes perfect sense to you we should wait until all the rolls are gone before we collect moderns?
You do realize most of these rolls are put together from mint sets, don't you?
I don't remember ever telling you how to collect pillar dollars or saying things like they are uncollectible because there are no BU rolls or they are all badly worn. Heaven forfend they are even foreign!!!
@WCC said:
>
PCGS has graded roughly 100,000 clad Ike dollars, excluding proofs. Multiple individual dates have combined NGC and PCGS counts of 10.000+. I'd hardly call this "hibernating". It's only low versus Morgan dollars, Peace dollars, and the more common pre-1933 US gold.
It's a popular series measured by size of collector base but just with a lower or much lower relative preference for what should mostly be self-evident reasons. There are plenty of other coins available for similar or lower prices as alternatives.
So it makes perfect sense to you we should wait until all the rolls are gone before we collect moderns?
What does this statement have to do with my post? Answer: Nothing
I don't remember ever telling you how to collect pillar dollars or saying things like they are uncollectible because there are no BU rolls or they are all badly worn. Heaven forfend they are even foreign!!!
Once again, inventing claims from my posts I never stated or implied. I've never claimed any US modern is "uncollectible". You misattribute this claim to my posts repeatedly because you dislike my posts on these topics.
My point, which you ignored or missed entirely, is that there is no evidence of any connection between the two, at all.
Something always has to happen so we can just say all this is going on at once coincidentally and that those selling moderns can't be buying silver just as those selling silver can't be buying BU rolls.
All of (human) reality unfolds based on what people believe. Beliefs are beginning to undergo some tremendous changes and if this continues (it will) then there will follow tremendous changes in culture. It hasn't been the 1960's where you live in a very very long time.
>
You're the one whose been "stuck in the 60's" ever since I first exchanged posts with you. You're also making the same inferences in this thread you've made repeatedly which have absolutely no relation to reality. You've admitted to being wrong on this subject for over 50 years, yet the disconnect never registers with you. What a joke.
@WCC said:
>
Once again, inventing claims from my posts I never stated or implied. I've never claimed any US modern is "uncollectible". You misattribute this claim to my posts repeatedly because you dislike my posts on these topics.
You keep saying things like moderns are financially inconsequential. If that would help keep speculators out I'd applaud but you intend it to keep collectors out and it will work for anyone who thinks this means they have no value which really is the only possible meaning.
It's especially bad because it's true for many moderns in practice. You can't ship "100" rolls of '60-D sm dt cents because their aggregate value won't cover postage and their face value won't pay for a trip to the bank for many people. It's flotsam that sits around until they're tossed in the trash; inconsequential. But somehow you've managed to extrapolate these simple facts to mean not only that no coin made after 1964 has a "consequential" value to none ever can and collectors would be well advised to collect real coins like ZAR.
Few people have any desire to own a bag of '60-D cents because they aren't collected this way but I'd love to have one. No, I can't pay your postage or much of a premium but get it to me and I'll pull out the Gems and varieties then haul $49.75 to the bank because somebody has to do it or there will be literally none in the future.
Well, here we are; it's the future already and always has been. Guess what. People still didn't save moderns and all those bags of '60-D cents are mostly gone now or sitting corroding in somebody's garage. Of course millions saved a few bags and rolls survived anyway because that's the way attrition works. You start with a huge number and it takes forever to whittle it down and a few people stored their coins properly AND were lucky. All those moderns you keep tarring were neither made nor saved in large quantities and no matter how many times I point this out you want bash them all. I like '60-D sm dt cents but they are not the be all end all "modern coin collecting". I recognize they are common even in very nice chBU condition. So exactly how many bags of corroded junk have to exist before you can't collect coins from later times? How valuable does a coin have to be before it becomes "consequential".
It's not so much I "dislike" your posts as it is I can't follow your logic and you often conclude that moderns are uncollectible, worthless, or inappropriate for making coin collections.
Pick up a recent edition of the Redbook and you might see your premises are wrong. It's always very easy to reason right on around to everything we believe but I don't share your belief and neither do millions of new collectors. Most young collectors own at least a few coins made since 1965.
Comments
For the most part Ikes are the only moderns CAC will sticker.
Only modern rolls I ever picked up from local bank for collection. Was disappointed in the plastic wrapped roll. Never opened but liked the Bison reverse design.
@cladking: good & informative thread! I’ve been letting a handful of my vintage rolls go with good results so far. I’m going to continue to sell them a couple/few at a time….
“The thrill of the hunt never gets old”
PCGS Registry: Screaming Eagles
Copperindian
Retired sets: Soaring Eagles
Copperindian
Nickelodeon
Early Walkers
Just putting this out there as pure speculation because I am familiar with the Amusement marketplace.
The late 70s and early 80s were boom years in the arcade business largely because of video games.
What was the medium of exchange? Quarters. Undoubtedly if you do the numbers, billions of quarters were cycled through the change machines. I would surmise those boom years were particularly in demand, as needed quarters were siphoned out of circulation and the banks. Thus possible scarcity of CHOICE Mint state rolls.
There will be a lot more than just a few. But bags are unlikely to have any chGem or better coins. Some bags won't even have a Gem. Typical coins were just junk and few were looking around for nice ones which are still out there. The market is far larger than even if some date exists in five bags. That's just not going have much effect on the BU roll market especially if it's of a date where virtually all coins issued for circulation had several categories of defects. A lot of these coins just can't be sold as "chBU".
A major determinant of Ike availability by date is likely to depend largely on the coin's ability to not deteriorate in contact with mint set packaging. Most moderns in chBU condition or better originated in mint sets. Very few coins were saved though to some people $1 might not seem so much so setting aside large numbers forever certainly isn't impossible. There was an active ike market and even before the series began there were people talking about collecting it. I have little doubt the vast majority of bags were distributed within a few years. Some of these dates are tough!
It would be interesting to know if the government has these in storage. It's hard to imagine the government raffling off ten or twenty million Ike dollars. Who knows? We'll just have to see what persists.
Yes, but if that sneeze were in China and should shake its wings a terrible wind might shake in coins of the modern US.
How ever many they got the pops were only affected in one single date; 1977. It nearly doubled the number of really nice Gems. I haven't seen them but they graded high. This means there were no doubt lots of nice chBU 1977 Ikes in the lot. Without more details it's hard to get too much useable information from this but I have the sense that the coins were all classified and distributed and contained more than a single date.
I don't believe LCC got the nice bag of 77-P Ikes but there's a slight chance I could be wrong.
The Ikes that LCC handled were graded by NGC with their bulk submission tier.
Anyone remember the Big Sky Hoard label by NGC?
I have an original Mint bag of 1977 [P] Eisenhower dollars (now stored in tubes of 20).
The price still seems a little low, so I'm not selling. There probably isn't many of these left.
It is the lowest-mintage date for any non-silver non-proof Eisenhower Dollar.
At the time (1977) there would not have been much reason for anyone to save these.
It would have been one of the most lightly saved probably due to declining interest in setting aside coins caused by a lack of much of a premium. In those days wholesale on all the circulation issues was about 20% though everyone knew some dates were tough nice. I believe a great deal of the Denver issues in those days went straight to Vegas and the Phillys were released to circulation in part by stamp machines in post offices. Ikes had a tendency to flow right back to the banks in those days. A lot of the wear you see on the coins today is from counting. With a mintage of only 13 million and one of the poorer quality dates (Gems abound in mint sets) nice chBU coins probably are pretty tough. Wholesale got up to $4 each but the market has quieted recently.
It is a very interesting date. A well preserved bag of BU's might be pretty tough.
Interesting topic that I am following closely.
I was able to secure a Lincoln roll set (nearly complete) back to 1945 for basically double face from a local shop back in the late 1980s that had been put away by a serious numismatist (and RedBook contributor). They were tubed and sealed and the few I have examined appear to be something approaching supergem. I have looked at the prices for years and just could not imagine selling them at Greysheet prices . . . but now things seem to be heating up.
It will be fun to watch the next year or two . . . . . . but the great info in this thread has been MOST educational . . .
Drunner
Runner, if your super gem singles get graded MS67+RD or higher by PCGS they can bring amazing prices. It's not that they're necessarily rare but they’re very popular.
Correction: Drunner.
You can edit the prior post.
You also need to tag the person you want to see it. People don't read every post.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
It requires a remarkable amount of work to assemble such a set dependent on difficulty of finding coins and luck. I'm guessing some of those dates are less pristine nor as well made. There was no real mechanism even to add contacts because so few people were even looking much less focusing on quality. I have no doubt that what you saw was pristine and remarkable and possibly priceless but is virtually impossible without creating a great deal of attention and I never got wind of it. So I'm assuming an intense effort by no more than a couple individuals could create a very remarkable roll set but the laws of rarity still apply; if there aren't as many of something as was always apparent then people want it. The ultimate "giffin good".
Many BU rolls of moderns are very difficult to obtain. This market is arising because there has always been a demand for nice choice BU coins. These have always been plentiful for the few who collected them. But now you can't buy them in the quantity you need them so a market for BU rolls is emerging.
My AI wrote out a long almost perfect synopsis generated by the previous post it's accuracy to my intended meaning was remarkably close. but it made one tiny oversight I'm sure it wouldn't mind my sharing.
"a collector with discipline
a willingness to buy quality when others ignored it
and the ability to store it properly
Most people underestimate how much work goes into a set like that.
You’re naming the reality: it doesn’t just appear."
It misses the forest for the trees and of course it is technically right that "discipline" does require work. But in this case "work" entails a great deal of bale toting and barge lifting. To assemble a set like this required looking at a bag of cents to even see if it had any candidates. Most bags were represented by ten or twelve die pair and some oddballs (most in small runs) and of course this varied over the years as well as the specific issue. Some dates the bags were the same tired look like they came off the same pallet. They made a few nice coins every year when things went well but these coins could be remarkably few and far between. Scarcity combined with bad luck could have you looking at a lot of bags. And even if you hit the jackpot there might be fewer than 50 Gems even on the best runs. This is actually related to BU roll availability because there is a tendency among coin collectors to impulsively save any coin he sees of very high quality. He might even toss it in his safety deposit box when he visits or exchanges his Morgan dollar collection.
Most moderns were produced and saved in quantity with little or no consideration to quality or preservation. There was no market for anything that existed in BU rolls because this was considered "ample quantity". People paid no attention and when high grades started up people said it was a bubble because there were millions of them and they were all MS-70.
Well, guess what, the market is suggesting maybe these aren't as common in chBU as we thought. Now, many dates are almost impossible to get in circulation except in cull.
What's going on with BU Jefferson Nickel rolls???
December 2025 greysheet has BIG price increases for dates 1945-2005.
Other than LCC trying to buy 54-S, 57-P & D for listed bid, who's running the bids up??
Compare Dec '25 prices with Nov '25 graysheet prices to see what's happening.
So for the life of me and I don’t know why I ever did this, I just found 125 rolls of double roll boxed sets of 2004P&D and 2005P&D nickel rolls from the mint along with rolls I purchased at the bank for face value. I always wanted to think they would carry a premium, but was I kidding myself? That’s 5,000 nickels I put away 20 years ago for what reason? Go figure. Zack.
I don't know what's more remarkable, how few pre-'99 nickels survive in circulation or their near universal pathetic condition. Attrition is much higher than dimes but then I assume a lot of these exist in hoards of those who know they contain much more than 5c worth of cu/ ni. They're not all "gone" like with dimes but waiting for this overhang to be checked for better dates. More than 65% of some of the dimers are gone forever but it's close to 80% for some of the nickels. Even the quarters have up to 60% attrition but the survivors are universally worn where many of the dimes are still quite attractive. Recently in lots of five rolls of nickels I was finding only two coins per lot (1% of the coins) to be nice attractive pre-'94 nickels in nice attractive collectible condition and these were just common dates in F or VF. Wherever they're goin they are now going in highly degraded condition. Of course a lot of the Uncs are unattractive garbage so chBU are what the markets want. There may be even fewer out there than I figured. I know only their relative availability and this within strict limits and several assumptions. Maybe the attrition on BU coins is higher than I guessed. Of all the coins in the mint sets the nickels hold up best. But getting enough sets to make BU rolls is getting more problematical; enough so perhaps as to cause this sea change.
But this change doesn't affect only nickels because I'm seeing higher bids across the board except for Ikes that have already moved higher. I think we're going to see a lot more condition consciousness because a lot of those Ikes in BU rolls are to an older standard where they are so poorly made or marked that some collectors won't consider them "chBU". If people need what works then we might see tighter standards and even more scarcity. Where do you even get a Philly Ike from a '75 mint set that isn't more like a damaged planchet than a type I ike?
These are certainly interesting times.
A lot of the demand must be for types so even common coins get larger premiums.
When will BU roll prices of state quarters ever go higher in price ? I am sure someday they will but not in most of our lives. I cannot believe that most of the BU examples in the last 20-25 years have been cashed in. I am surprised that the Wi. Extra Leaf Quarters have done so well. Collectors appear to have a genuine interest in the two varieties.
@Cuprinkor and other respondents . . .
Very good points, and I appreciate your insight! The quality of the rolls seems to be uniformly higher than normal, and will at some point become a project for me to do an extended search and grade. (I have reviewed about half of the rolls and am enthused to eventually do a really grinding coin-by-coin evaluation, looking for that possible rare 'gradeable' piece.) The majority (but not all) appear to be rolls which feature just 2-3 die pairs per roll. They were put away by a relatively notable numismatist from the 1950-1970 era whom most of us would remember, then hidden for about 50 years until I 'found' them. Add another 20 years of my possession under controlled environmental circumstances, and they look fairly nice.
No . . .I do not have much in the way of moderns rolls (just some random boxes of Lincolns and the 10xRoll set of Statehoods that weights 175 pounds and gets used for truck washes). I am more of a 'classic guy' . . .but love to read of the modern exploits here.
Have fun in your searches! When the time comes to 'bust and grade' . . . I'll start a thread . . . . .
Drunner
This thread is due for some more pics.
These two beauties came from original bank rolls that I purchased on eBay a couple years ago.
They both graded PCGS 67 and will be headed to my first ever CAC submission in January once my latest submission of Ike’s come back. Gotta go I’m about to nuke an auction on the bay in a few minutes. 🤣
Drunner: Both Bob White and myself missed you today at the Salem (OR) show in Rickreall.
Maybe down the road, huh?
I thought the 1973 was the lowest mintage @ 1,769,258. The 1977 is @ 12,596,000
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I meant to write, lowest mintage released into circulation.
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I'm not sure anyone knows how many 1976 type I's were made but my guess is 6,829,807 based on the most commonly reported mintage number plus mint set coins. This might be the real sleeper in the series. I'm fairly sure substantial numbers of bags and rolls were saved but it's possible these are all bad rolls and they could be tarnished as well. I didn't pay any attention to Ikes until 1979 because I thought there were no Gems (I was wrong). I've only seen a couple rolls of these and thewy were dogs. Mint set coins are awful as well. Only about 2 out of 3 were even "chBU" and now they are all tarnished because the '75 mint set packaging is highly unstable. Not even MS-62's are readily available. Nobody knows how scarce these are but I fear the worst; even nice attractive MS-64's will prove elusive.
The '73 is almost always heavily marked so MS-64's are barely more common than the type I. '77 and '78-D are the most common in Gem but the '77 is tough in chBU because of low mintage and collector apathy.
I agree.. I have quite a few of them in PCGS MS64 (1976 T1) from my failed attempts at a 65
.. I would love to score a MS66 but they are elusive, and expensive. I suppose I can forget about making one.. they are getting scarce. I'm always looking to upgrade my registry set, but wow! The $$$ for any of them keeps going up
I have stabbed seven 1976 Philadelphia type 1 Eisenhower Dollars in PCGS MS66 from July 1999 to summer 2000 (Population coin#'s 7-13). I have not stabbed any other 76P T-1 in PCGS MS66 since then.
I used to go through 1975 mint sets and cut out the nicer Ikes, both P & D.
Most of them graded PCGS MS64 with a few MS65's along the way.
A consensus PCGS MS66 76P T-1 Ike is a very scarce and highly desirable coin.
Getting back to the substantial price increases for BU Jefferson Nickel rolls, who would bid $80/roll for 1963-D or 69-D rolls? I've SPENT rolls of 63-D in the past 2 years because the coins were so CRAPPY (dull lackluster and poorly struck). The coins didn't even look unc. but they were original rolls.
I found a very nice gemmy one recently that easily looked 67 until you tilt it and see the scratch marks across the highest points. Not sure what causes these I assume packing but some of nicest coins have these. Such a drag!
Anyway, tells me a 67 or better does exist.
I've long said that this is one of the big reasons people quit saving rolls of coins in 1965. It wasn't just that the coins were debased and the market had evaporated but quality took a nose dive in 1965. Before quality was poor but there was a sameness to them and most rolls contained a few nice chBU coins. But after 1964 it was typical that quality ranged from pretty bad to abysmal in almost every roll. Some dates chBU was elusive. Then no market developed so all the post-64 rolls were pretty much worth face value and had no collector interest. The coins were spent.
Back in the '70's and '80's I had the foolish notion that '58 nickels had been overlooked and accumulated rolls. I knew most were bad but tried to buck the odds. I recently sold all I had a a large loss. I ran together about 15 rolls and got only about 4 rolls of nice chBU which I shipped off and the rest went to the bank. They were a disaster. I was able to pull out four or five coins that were fairly gemmy but there will be thousands of coins nicer than these.
If I had gotten 15 rolls from a single source there might be not even one chBU. '69-D mint set nickels clean up real nice. There are a few rolls and a few are nice rolls but usually these roils don't look all that great. Maybe and average of 15 chBU per roll. Gems will be rare in rolls but were common in the mint sets. BU rolls assembled from mint sets will be quite attractive. I don't know if it's a $80 roll though. What I do know is that it's impossible to make large numbers of them. Indeed, it has become difficult to even find the about "50" 1969 mint sets you'd need to make even one roll and that all the coins will need to be cleaned to do it. Seen in this light $80 seems "cheap" for all the work involved. But it also seems "cheap" to acquire such tough coins. A chBU '69-D nickel is a lot scarcer than a chBU 1950-D nickel and a roll of them got up over $8000 in today's money. The more common coin was worth just about 100 times as much! Even after the enormous drop in the '50-D and the enormous increase in the '69-D the '50-D is still priced about 4 times the '69-D!!!
Of course markets require demand and the '50-D in under large demand because many people collect pre-1960 nickels and few collect the later coins. And this is EXASCTLY what is exciting about this; there is finally a demand for moderns so now we can finally find out what is common and what is rare. In a few years the price guides will be an accurate representation of the relative scarcity of all the moderns. There are going to be surprises for me too because some coins will be tougher than what I experienced and some will be easier.
This being said I pretty much know some of the coins because I studied them intently. I have a pretty good feel for '71 nickels, '82-P quarters, and '76 half dollars for instance because I paid more attention and looked at more coins. It is true that I concentrated on Gems and cared much less about chBU but the Gems are still found among the chBU. And, I believe, all of these BU rolls being sold now will contain lots of really nice coins. There may be no MS-67's but there will be beautiful coins with pretty much everything nicer than fully lustrous and attractive MS-63. Even in this condition many moderns are far more elusive than the common wisdom suggests. If an attractive roll of '69-D can go to $80 what is the proper price for a real scarcity like the '82-P or really tough coins like a '76?
These are interesting times.
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I have seen a lot of that. I think it is from the mint set packaging machinery.
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Take a good look at the '80-D half doillars. Incredibly 98% of them have this wide scratch on the reverse, obverse, or both. These are almost all the nice looking coins made for mint sets: Nice coins very well struck from new dies and then scratched going into the mint set. And the 2% that aren't scratched are mostly common looking coins without mint set quality. This coin was far and away my luckiest to find. I just happened to go to the Denver mint that year and I picked out six nice Gem half dollars in souvenir sets without the scratch. What are the odds?
The scratch is common in that era on the half dollar. They were experimenting with mechanized mint set production all through the run and, I believe, they went full automatic in 1980. After 1979 mint set quality fell into a nice bell curve shape. Before that there were sets that were too good to be true or too bad to be real. After '79 it was random.
There are many such patterns. I think it's the '85-D dime that have a "common" spectacular Gem from new dies, perfectly struck and quite PL but every single coin from this die pair had a gouge in the exact same place. Apparently they were ejected from the coining chamber onto a sharp object.
I have always had a hidden love of BU Rolls.
I was able to pick up 500 BU rolls of Lincolns. I have sold most of the wheaties off but still have all the Lincolns. As well as about 400 mint sets...
The same dealer helped me get a BU Jefferson set.from 50 to 90... but a lot of these rolls are from mint sets. You can tell as many of the mid 60's have that mint set haze.
I have BU Rolls of quarters from 60 to 1999... I was trying to put together a full set of the RDVs from 56 to 72 amd I bought many many rolls... most of the 65 to 74 are from mint sets.
These have set in the bottom on my closet for years and years. I absolutely love BU Rolls. Never really tracked pricing. Hopefully when I die my wife can find someone with a fork lift to move these things. Lol
I believe I have 100 rolls of 1974-d, 73 and 74 Lincolns...
I love these things... but the time to go through and try to find that one that will grade out its laborious. So they have juat set in there... with dessicants in the boxes waiting for the next person
@cladking Yes, the 80 D halves have some real heart breakers.
@Relaxn and the 74 D Lincoln’s can come very nice, hammered & cherry red.
Some of you coins will prove to be common and some will break your heart because some rolls can't be saved. But it sounds like you may have substantial numbers of nice chBU and Gem moderns.
There just aren't going to be many such accumulations caused by bad quality, reactive surfaces and packaging, and the near total neglect of the coin hobby. Rolls are apparently going up because the paltry demand exceeds the few that survive.
I'm expecting the exploding prices to attract far more demand than supply. It's hard to say how it will play out but a lot depends on beliefs and perspectives. If young people tend to believe that modern are uncollectible than the perception of rarity caused by higher prices can't take hold. They can't buy so the explosion is contained among a bunch of oddballs buying rolls.
It looks like more sharply higher prices and more new sellers for BU singles so we know where the rolls are going. BU single start at about $125 per roll but most are higher. Sellers can't restock. This is a perfectly normal market conditions when prices go higher. The higher cost of restocking that causes prices to move.
https://www.villagecoin.com/jefferson-nickel-rolls.html
So much of this will depend on the general public who are buying the singles. Some of these collectors are much more advanced even though they are outside the mainstream. They know what it costs to get BU and they are paying it. The cycle continues. Collectors much more than consumers see rarity and want it. "Consumers" who can't get corn cheap enough buy wheat. If you can't get a '69-D nickel cheap enough you up your bid. If your neighbor can't get a '69-D nickel it might get you looking too.
Back in the early 2000's I sold a coin dealer friend a mint sewn bag of 2002-D Jefferson Nickels for face value ($200) since I decided not to search it for gems. He still has the bag and in November 2025 it was worth less than $400. With December 2025 bid now at $20/roll the bag is supposedly "worth" $2000.
I have no idea who would buy it at anywhere near this price.
The January CDN has them back down at $5.20 and $4.00. I guess it was just a typo last month. 😂
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
Another of your "word salads" which doesn't have anything to do with the subject.
My point, which you ignored or missed entirely, is that there is no evidence of any connection between the two, at all.
Most roll "collecting" is hoarding, financially mostly "stacking" (for silver) and where it isn't, it's mostly a low budget secondary sideline collection. It isn't and never was a primary collecting interest because there is (or was) any critical mass of a collector base who finds interest in owning dozens, hundreds, or even larger numbers of duplicates as a collectible.
I've told the OP this repeatedly, but here we are revisiting this merry-go-round, again.
PCGS has graded roughly 100,000 clad Ike dollars, excluding proofs. Multiple individual dates have combined NGC and PCGS counts of 10.000+. I'd hardly call this "hibernating". It's only low versus Morgan dollars, Peace dollars, and the more common pre-1933 US gold.
It's a popular series measured by size of collector base but just with a lower or much lower relative preference for what should mostly be self-evident reasons. There are plenty of other coins available for similar or lower prices as alternatives.
I just picked up some nice Jefferson rolls.
1954-s a box of 8 rolls- long put away. The one I opened had gorgeous champagne luster.
1948 d 7 rolls
1947 s 7 rolls...
My opinion finding pre 60 and post 75 Jefferson rolls are relatively easy. Finding nice 60's rolls of Jeffs damn near impossible.
Just musing...
Was very happy as I got them for, what I deem, pretty good prices. I dont track prices broadly but the Jefferson market still has some room to run.
Market has room to run IMHO. We will see
J
Thnx for the info. That '76 was quite believable since it's a tough date and rolls are often substandard when you do find them.
The checks I've been cashing are not typos, though. The market is perking up even if there are more increases in retail than in bids.
Something always has to happen so we can just say all this is going on at once coincidentally and that those selling moderns can't be buying silver just as those selling silver can't be buying BU rolls.
All of (human) reality unfolds based on what people believe. Beliefs are beginning to undergo some tremendous changes and if this continues (it will) then there will follow tremendous changes in culture. It hasn't been the 1960's where you live in a very very long time.
So it makes perfect sense to you we should wait until all the rolls are gone before we collect moderns?
You do realize most of these rolls are put together from mint sets, don't you?
I don't remember ever telling you how to collect pillar dollars or saying things like they are uncollectible because there are no BU rolls or they are all badly worn. Heaven forfend they are even foreign!!!
What does this statement have to do with my post? Answer: Nothing
So you've told me, over and over. So what? The TPG pops are not low.
Once again, inventing claims from my posts I never stated or implied. I've never claimed any US modern is "uncollectible". You misattribute this claim to my posts repeatedly because you dislike my posts on these topics.
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You're the one whose been "stuck in the 60's" ever since I first exchanged posts with you. You're also making the same inferences in this thread you've made repeatedly which have absolutely no relation to reality. You've admitted to being wrong on this subject for over 50 years, yet the disconnect never registers with you. What a joke.
You keep saying things like moderns are financially inconsequential. If that would help keep speculators out I'd applaud but you intend it to keep collectors out and it will work for anyone who thinks this means they have no value which really is the only possible meaning.
It's especially bad because it's true for many moderns in practice. You can't ship "100" rolls of '60-D sm dt cents because their aggregate value won't cover postage and their face value won't pay for a trip to the bank for many people. It's flotsam that sits around until they're tossed in the trash; inconsequential. But somehow you've managed to extrapolate these simple facts to mean not only that no coin made after 1964 has a "consequential" value to none ever can and collectors would be well advised to collect real coins like ZAR.
Few people have any desire to own a bag of '60-D cents because they aren't collected this way but I'd love to have one. No, I can't pay your postage or much of a premium but get it to me and I'll pull out the Gems and varieties then haul $49.75 to the bank because somebody has to do it or there will be literally none in the future.
Well, here we are; it's the future already and always has been. Guess what. People still didn't save moderns and all those bags of '60-D cents are mostly gone now or sitting corroding in somebody's garage. Of course millions saved a few bags and rolls survived anyway because that's the way attrition works. You start with a huge number and it takes forever to whittle it down and a few people stored their coins properly AND were lucky. All those moderns you keep tarring were neither made nor saved in large quantities and no matter how many times I point this out you want bash them all. I like '60-D sm dt cents but they are not the be all end all "modern coin collecting". I recognize they are common even in very nice chBU condition. So exactly how many bags of corroded junk have to exist before you can't collect coins from later times? How valuable does a coin have to be before it becomes "consequential".
It's not so much I "dislike" your posts as it is I can't follow your logic and you often conclude that moderns are uncollectible, worthless, or inappropriate for making coin collections.
Pick up a recent edition of the Redbook and you might see your premises are wrong. It's always very easy to reason right on around to everything we believe but I don't share your belief and neither do millions of new collectors. Most young collectors own at least a few coins made since 1965.