MODERN PROOF SETS FROM 1960 THRU 2010

[jamesf-migration]

Hi

I'm new to this discussion.

I've been collecting coins since I was a little kid .I'm 63 now and recently pulled out my collection and started researching the coins over the internet.

 

My first question to you're group

 

1. It seems to me that Proof Sets are undervalued. I bought some of these for $7:00 straight from the mint and now they seem to be the same price.

 

I would think a pristine coin set would increase in value. Wha'ts wrong with my thinking.

Thanks for any advise.. I'm enjoying looking thru the forum

[BillJones]

Part of the trouble is there are too many of those "pristine coins." The survival rates on those coins is very high, and collector demand is not high enough to sustain any price increases for them. The trouble is the collectors who want those sets buy them during the year of issue, and there is not enough "new blood" to push up or even sustain demand in the subsequent years. Finding high grade Mint State coins from the same years is all most always much harder, and demand for them is higher.

 

Personally I like and prefer Proof coins, but I am different in that regard. Many collectors are interested in the business strike coins which are much harder to find in the grades of MS-65 and above.

[GoldFinger1969]

1. It seems to me that Proof Sets are undervalued. I bought some of these for $7:00 straight from the mint and now they seem to be the same price.

I would think a pristine coin set would increase in value. Wha'ts wrong with my thinking.Thanks for any advise.. I'm enjoying looking thru the forum

 

Same thing that happened in the 1980's and 1990's with baseball cards happened with U.S. Mint products and collector coins in the 1960's and later: too much supply !!

 

It is strange looking back and seeing no increase or a 10-20% increase for Proof or Uncirculated coins over a period of 40 years.

 

My advice -- as someone who considers himself a newbie and collected as a kid in the 1970's and then took a few decades off -- is to decide if you are in this simply to collect coins you like, to invest in coins you like but would like to see appreciation, or simply to make $$$. For me, it's mostly investing in coins I like but would like to see appreciation (but if I don't, I can live with it since these are not my financial assets that I would depend on).

 

My coin collection as a kid spanned a few hundred coins probably worth at most a few thousand dollars (most of it from silver quarters and half-dollars). Since then, I've upgraded to buying FEWER but NICER coins (Morgan Silver Dollars, Saint-Gaudens DE's).

 

You don't do as much buying, you do more work for each coin, but you have less to manage and inventory, too.

 

Decide what YOU want to do and what is best for your coin or investment strategy....your time you plan to spend....and the $$$ you plan to spend (and also if you will be a net buyer or seller).

[SkyMan]

Part of what is happening also is that proof sets have been picked over. The nicer pieces, e.g. high grade or Cameo/Deep Cameo coins, have been cut out of the proof sets and sold as individual coins. The remaining supply of proof sets, on the whole, contain the mid level or lower quality coins. They are priced accordingly.

[jamesf-migration]

Thanks Bill

It still seems to me that collectors/dealers are breaking up the proof sets and selling the coins individually. To me that would mean that there are a lot less full original sets available, and that would make them more valuable.

 

Why wouldn't a collector want the most pristine coin? I understand rarity, but I would take a Proof 1776 penny over a UNC 1776 penny.

 

Thanks for you advise. This is very interesting subject to me

Jim

[jamesf-migration]

Hi goldfinger

Good advise.. So how do you research coins. Do you buy on the internet?

Can you trust the pictures on e-bay or other sites?. I' recently joined PCGS and Heritage.

How do you buy and sell you're coins?

Jim

[jamesf-migration]

Hi Skyman,

So are you saying if I have a pristine unopened proof set it is worth more?

JIm

[JIM F.]

Just too much supply and not enough demand. Even the no-S proof sets can be had for a relative bargain considering their estimated numbers are in the hundreds. My opinion is that the no-S proof sets are a value -- by that I mean the proof sets with the no-S dime in them but there are also no-S nickels and no-S cents.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[cladking]

The biggest problem with the proof sets is that there are so few people collecting moderns. Many modern collectors will desire proofs also but instead there are so few collectors that even the three quarters of a million '68 proof sets that survive swamps the demand. A lot of the coins from the busted up sets survive as well and these sell better than intact sets.

 

Someday I expect modern proof sets to "run out" and the prices to increase but this will happen after the mint sets run out and this hasn't happened yet either. The mintage of the proofs and their excellent and uniform quality will assure they're widely collected but also assure they won't get very high prices for typical specimens. But I certainly do agree that the current price of something like a '68-S PR-67 quarter is absurdly low at about 35c. This is simply a reflection of the lack of demand for these coins and is not a reflection of their availability or quality.

[JIM F.]

The US Mint is also to "blame" for the oversupply. They often reissue/resell "sold out" proof sets, driving supply higher after collectors have rightly assumed the issue mintage was complete. I was burned when the 2005 sets were sold again by the mint in 2006 -- at that time there was a small premium over the issue price only to be killed by the re-supply by the mint. I think this has happened again since, but not 100% sure.

 

 

 

 

[RWB]

Proof coins are shiny -- that's why they reflect demand....

 

"They often reissue/resell ‘sold out’ proof sets..."

 

Oh?

The mint sells the quantities that are ordered and keeps a small reserve for damaged and lost sets.

 

[TonerGuy]

Toned proofs in this range also sell for nice premiums...

[jamesf-migration]

So clad

would you stop buying the proof sets from the mint?

[cladking]

I rarely if ever will buy any coin less than three years old.

 

I will likely change my ways and start buying annual proof sets if/ when mint set prices go up. The older proof sets will become a great deal.

[e1cnr]

I have noticed the same thing with the stamps I purchased from the post office 40 years ago. Severely undervalued and worth less than I paid for them

[BillJones]

So clad

would you stop buying the proof sets from the mint?

 

I stopped buying Proof sets from the mint because I was getting too many substandard coins. When I was a dealer I'd buy ten sets or so and build a good set for myself. The rest I sold usually for a very small overall profit because some people don't like ordering from the mint.

 

The trouble is if you buy just one set from the mint, the luck of draw usually seems to leave you with one case full of dogs. Most of the dogs are the presidential coins because the metal alloy from which they are made is very prone to spotting.

 

I tell you one thing about the sets from 1968 to 1990. If you are a fussy collector who likes nice boxes and nice sets without toned or spotted coins in them, you might be looking for a while. Part of the reason is the low prices which discourage many dealers from stocking Proof sets, but another reason is that a lot of the boxes are all chewed up and the coins are often spotted. Finding nice complete Proof sets in the mint packing is not as easy as it seems.

 

Also a fair number of the Proof coins that have broken out of Proof sets and put into albums of complete sets of modern coins have gone bad. The reasons is that Proof coins and sulfur that is in many coin set albums does do not mix well. Also those pesky album slides can do a job on the coins too.

 

I'm not writing this to start a modern Proof set promotion. It's just a few observations that I have made over the past 15 years or so.