cladking

The broadstrike even literally wouldn't fit in the hole of a collection. There are some pretty neat bicentennial quarter errors and that is one of the neatest.

US mint quality ranges from adequate to very poor in the last century. In the late '30's they approached adequate and they hit their lowest point in 1966. Most of the '66 quarters were abysmal quality with fewer than 2 or 3% that might be considered "Gem" coming off the press. Most of these were then torn up in the machinery. Not only were there so few nice coins but the typical quality was remarkably poor with most coins poorly stuck by heavily worn dies. The dies were set far apart to save them from wear and then they were worn down to the nub anyway. I suspect most of the Gems they tried to make badly and failed. Quality has improved in fits and starts ever since but the big improvements came in 1999 when people started paying attention to the coins. Some of the Europeans mints strike almost exclusively Gems and manage to get most of them out of the mint in nearly pristine condition. Switzerland has the highest quality.

I certainly understand and sympathize with your position. I am hardly suggesting that there is variability in the SMS coins because I say so. I am merely stating that in my experience there exists vast variability in SMS coins. The Higgs- Boson existed long before it was found and long before human life even existed. I believe variability exists in Special Mint Set coins because of mint experimentation and will continue to exist for many thousands of years whether the coins are scientifically studied and records found or not. If even one of these coins was struck multiple times with specially prepared dies on a polished planchet intentionally or otherwise it is a proof whether it was intentional or not. It is a proof whether documentation is ever found or not and it is a proof whether it is recognized or not. I might well be mistaken about some or any of the explanations I've hypothesized for the variability in the coins. It's even possible that some of the most distinctly different coins were swapped into the sets in an attempt to deceive buyers on the secondary market. Perhaps I should have done more research over the years but there seems very little information available. Remember the mint even claimed mint set coins were made by the same processes as circulation issues for many years even though I "knew" they were not. I am aware of no scientific or documentary evidence that contradicts anything I believe. It is even possible as some have suggested that the '64 so called special mint sets are wholly unrelated to these later sets. Perhaps "SMS" was a mere marketing ploy. As a collector rather than a researcher I intend to bow out of this discussion, at least for the nonce.

A very tiny number of these appear to have been inadvertently or intentionally made as proofs. I've seen very few from the thousands of sets and dozens of rolls of coins from the sets that I've looked at. I've seen a couple that others found, one in hand. I believe these may have accidently been struck twice. It is possible some other confluence of factors caused their appearance. I don't believe Unc set coins after 1964 ever saw the inside of a bag. Most bags issued from the mint after 1965 contained no true Gems. This is because the coins were so poorly made and even if a nice one got into a bag the odds are it was scratched up before and/or after bagging. Many years there were Gems available but they were very very tough in the SMS years. Very few coins were saved on whole and those saved tended to be run of the mill rather than hand selected coins. Of course this doesn't apply to '64 issues. Millions were saved. Quality isn't a lot better but silver is soft enough that there are more fully struck coins. Cents and nickels are as bad as the later coins but far more numerous. .

Dependent on the specific date and denomination 90% to 99+% of each of the 15 coins in the SMS's are made with the same processes. Any variability is the result of die wear or individual strike characteristics. But some of these coins are not like the others. There were significant differences in die, planchet, or coining processes. There is a lot of variation in the appearance of the coins.

Just to be clear not every die even in 1967 produced even one cameo coin. Dies were prepared in several different ways and, I believe, some dies were sandblasted after they had already run off cameos. 1966 SMS coins have numerous different appearances as do the '65 and to a lesser extent '67 issues.

I was not aware of this. No doubt the '68 (S-mint) and later proofs were struck twice. I had thought they used this exact same equipment as the '64 proof coins to strike all the SMS. There were numerous differences between the SMS coins,. Some were struck on polished planchets, some dies were polished, some were frosted, some were even basined. There were apparently numerous differences in the execution of the SMS coins. There are numerous highly PL and frosted SMS especially for 1967 but there are also coins with a matte appearance. None of the coins that appear to be true "proofs" that I've seen are cameo. These "proof" coins are so well struck that I assume they were struck twice. None of the cameo coins I've seen are so well struck but they are often very highly PL. The '66 coins are the most variable with '65 a close second. They apparently had settled on the "look" they wanted for the coins by '67 but a few of these vary as well. These were a sort of mint set/ proof set hybrid in 1967 leaning toward proof appearance. Despite the increasing quality production decreased with each issue because they were not popular with collectors. Mint set collectors tended to consider them to be proof sets and proof sets collectors tended to see them as mint sets. They pleased almost nobody and represented a dramatic falloff in the aggregate mintages of mint and proof sets. 1968 and later mint sets have far more in common with the SMS's than with earlier mint sets. Many '68 and later mint set specimens look like SMS.

Yes. Same here. Virtually every Gem made by the mint since 1964 has been specially produced. They probably make a few million per year for circulation but the odds of these being saved out is exceedingly low. Even intensive searching in the year of issue would rarely turn up any nice coins and back before 1999 there wasn't really much searching. People were grading nice Morgans and old coins and no one had time for new coins. I have found my share of Gems made for circulation but as nice as these are they usually don't have as crisp of strike or the new dies of coins made for collectors. Every year I find a small handful of these and sometimes a few rolls.

Thank you. I was not aware of this. It was not at all uncommon in those days to reuse either obverse or reverse dies to strike circulation issues. Dies were at a premium especially during the coin shortage.

I think most mint set collectors knew this way back in the '70's or even earlier but the first time I remember it in print was a a story in Coins magazine back in the '90's. I don't recall the mint admitting these coins were specially made until it appeared in an advertisement for 1996 mint sets in Coin World. I've read only about half of the mint reports since 1964 so may have missed it. I should have suspected the coins were produced at lower speeds but didn't know this until the mint finally came clean. The mint is set up to produce and release Gems but the reality is that things go wrong at every single stage of production. so virtually no coins at all come out of the mint as well struck coins by good dies and minimum marking. This has been even more true in the clad era and for most practical purposes 1964 really included in the clad era. There is even a 1964 coin struck on a clad planchet. Any Gem 1964 coin is highly suspect of being specially made and merely using new dies is quite insufficient to assuring the production of a Gem. With some coins everything goes wrong so a coin can just be a piece of junk struck by a brand new die.

I love finding these sets with swapped out coins. A nice 1967 non-SMS quarter is quite valuable today. It was worth 25c in 1966 and the SMS at least a dollar but today you can't get more than 50c for the SMS and even an MS-60 is worth $5. Gems get quite pricey. Be this as it may I've seen only a handful of SMS's with any coins at all swapped out. There are far more rumors of cheating than there are instances. As far as the low relief '66 quarters are concerned it's very difficult to believe they are examples of this chiefly because the worst I've ever seen is virtually mark free. Circulation issues of that time were not only poorly made by worn out dies but they always had marking and usually excessive marking.

The coin shortage was much more easily ameliorated than had been predicted. Not only was the mint churning out vast numbers of coins but silver prices had been in a gradually decreasing trajectory for years dampening the demand of hoarders. Some of the moves made to recirculate coins might have helped a little and the silver hoarders finally got arounds to taking their pennies and nickels back to the bank. The mint was working overtime and their job by this time was more to replace all the silver in circulation rather than solving a coin shortage. So, yes, they used some capacity to invent and make SMS's which were sold at a significant profit to the mint. I had sent in cash for a 1965 proof sets and they had to return it with an apology. No doubt my order wasn't the only one.

This is from observation and experience. Based on the characteristics of the coins in the SMS's they obviously used numerous different techniques and processes to produce the coins. Coins range from what are probably technically proof specimens (struck multiple times on polished planchets) to virtual garbage. The most dramatic example is a 1966 quarter that shows up in ~.4% of sets that is well struck by very low relief dies and usually appears virtually flawless. Even the '67 sets show some variation but the '65 and '66 are far more extreme.

This is hardly an easy question. Not only are most dies far more uniform than older ones but they are also far more numerous and barely studied at all. It's difficult to even trace the same die over the course of a very long life because it changes far more than the tiny differences with other dies. Tracing hundreds of dies sometimes with few or no specimens surviving in Unc is quite impossible. There is a small handful of identifiable 1964 quarter dies but none would necessarily be very likely to have been used on the particular group of coins that are called "SMS". They did a lot of experimenting with different techniques to make the '65 and '66 Special Mint Sets and the '64 coins "look" like some of these. Perhaps it is largely this, their matte appearance, and their unique source as much as anything that led to them receiving a "SMS" designation.

I don't know How I missed this! But between the login problems I used to have and my new computer (that still doesn't work right) it's a wonder I caught anything. Congratulations.

I've always been interested in circulating coinage. If I were alive in the 1840's I would be studying the coins actively circulating. The task is virtually impossible and perhaps not worth the effort to even format or begin but the greatest possible task would be to understand how all coinage circulated since the first coin was minted. Failing this (and it is a fool's errand) it would be nice to understand one country's circulating coinage at one time. It would be nice to have actual numbers for for things like attrition and its rate of change. It would be nice to know about regional and temporal differences in circulation patterns. I would love to know some of the reasons that some coins are almost universally worn out or destroyed and others receive little or no wear. Why are so many more bicentennial quarters in circulation since the states coins were introduced? Of course they don't stand out as much any longer so fewer are removed but why are they being released? Why are they still almost all in high grade?

I mostly just dumped junk and traded it for some of the good stuff going to the melters. Why hold a VG and low grade mercury dimes when I could trade them for AU's and Uncs for a few dollars in postage or transaction costs? Even if they end up having to be being sold for scrap they provide some protection against low prices.

I believe they'd have melted a huge amount if not for the fact it was so brief. It started building in late-summer and by December the refineries were going full out with huge backlogs. I believe it slowed dramatically shortly after the price peaked. Of course coins are being melted on a continuing basis. In the old days most silver coin was melted only when it wore out. Now days a great number of base metal coins are melted when they become obsolete.

I was able to go through a lot of the silver being shipped off to be melted in 1979. There were lots of things that broke my heart to not be able to save. I saw rolls of things like 1955 Gem quarters but I never saw any better date stuff unless it was cull. A lot more '32-S quarters would have been melted in the treasury melts of '68-'70 but even here numbers are quite nominal because there were very few in circulation. The coins circulating when the FED removed circulating silver were picked over and heavy in things like XF to AU 1964 quarters. Older dates and higher grades had been picked out by coin collectors since 1942. Many of these coins like '49-S half dollars in less than XF were then melted in 1979.

The reports won't do you any good if you assume equal percentages of 1864 and 1964 quarters were melted.

This is actually very easy to estimate if you read the reports for the last 75 years.

I said the vast majority are worn out and lost; not all of them. 90%+ of the cents and 70% of the nickels wore out in circulation and were then lost. The survivors are in horrible condition though it's not too unusual to find the '64 5c in grades up to VF. Both of these exist in large quantities in chBU and Gems are not unusual. The '65 nickel also wore out and was lost in circulation but there are very few in chBU and Gems are very uncommon. Except for the date it is identical to the '64 Philly otherwise. "FS" was added to the obverse in '66 (which is even tougher than the '65).

No. The vast majority of '64 pennies and nickels have been worn out and lost. Due to the many large meltings only about 60% of the quarters survive. Most Ike dollars are sitting in sock drawers in VF-AU condition unless the FED still has some in storage which they may or may not. None of these coins that might be in FED storage are likely to be UNC but if any are they are most probably dated 1976 or later. There is enough demand for BU Ikes to cause an $80 per roll wholesale price. While 1964 quarters have been melted in large quantities this does not apply to any of the old silver coins with a numismatic premium. A very low percentage of '32-S quarters have been melted.

Paul Green reported on a great number of world moderns that are highly elusive. He didn't report as much on countries where the demand could soar as the economy created more and more middle class with the finances to build collections. So far most of the explosive growth has been in countries with lots of new collectors but in the longer term there will be countries where the coins are just that scarce. People have always assumed all moderns are common but the reality is some moderns are excruciatingly common and most others are scarce or rare. Most of the '50's era Greek coins have ended up in poundage but try finding these in XF. They are not at all common in grades higher than F.

There is insufficient supply for a "mass market. It is just this simple. The last of the available supply is disappearing through sale or tarnish and the demand continues to grow year after year. The current situation is unsustainable.