Take Apart A Mint Set?

Got it, thanks basebal21

For safety I'd keep it away from everything, ingesting it would not be good at all. Clean all the surfaces thoroughly afterwards to be safe. I don't believe it is as flammable as acetone but definitely have good ventilation.

As far as use I wouldn't ever recycle it but maybe you can I'm not sure. For haze roll a qtip soaked in it over it or something like that, I've never used it as a purely soaking method. Maybe you can I'm not sure and by no means an expert with it but I do know that done right it's perfectly acceptable and have never seen it actually destroy a coin like dip can, but you may not always like what it reveals.

Here is a link to PCGS article on destruction of mint sets which is an interesting read. From my personal experience, 80% of what I'm finding inside these mint sets that I recently cut up are horrible and wouldn't grade much much better than MS64. I keep reminding myself that the mint bagged and shipped these coins to a location where packaging was done. Before these coins actually made it into a mint set, they had a rough life in shipping.

https://www.PCGS.com/news/Destructi...f-Mint-Sets/

Thanks mikem007 & basebal21!

So for someone starting out like me, how would you guys recommend me buying something along the lines of a 1959 Cent. Is it better to find a shop selling it BU or find someone selling them in a cut up Mint set still?

Thanks for the advice mikem007!

Thank you very much for the link. I try to read every article by Morgan and Walker but somehow missed this one!

Collectors just don't realize how scarce nice attractive moderns really are. They believe these mint sets will give up millions of nice collectible specimens but the reality is some dates like the 1969 are already getting scarce due to the destruction and most 1969 mint sets that survive have tarnished Philly quarters. When you add in the fact that only about 8% of mint sets had nice quarters the day they left the mint you can see these are already scarce but collectors are still sleeping.

And when I say "nice" I'm not talking about Gems here. Just attractive BU coins that look shiny and don't have a weak strike and chicken scratches. I'm talking what we used to call "BU" and is now "MS-63". Most of the rest are just ugly with bad strikes.

There were almost no rolls of these set aside! People imagine rolls and bags but I've been looking since 1972 and have never actually seen an original BU roll of 1969 clad quarters! But I know if I did see one what it would look like because I've seen lots of '69's; they would all be junk. The best '69's are the coins in mint sets.

There are other dates just as tough or tougher but people aren't collecting them so they are low priced. You can find them at all only because they aren't being collected.

It's not only quarters either. Every denomination has keys but most keys in chBU are quarters. In Gem Ikes have the most keys. In high grade Gem nickels have the most. In MS-60 quarters win again. The "easiest" set in Gem are the dimes but there are some significant keys in this set as well.

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The wholesale price of the coins in a mint set can be far higher than the total value of a given mint set. The primary reason for this is the reluctance of many collectors to cut up sets for the coins they need. They buy individual coins rather than complete sets.

In some cases there are secondary reasons as well. Some to many coins in a specific case are not sufficient quality to sell as BU so more sets are required to build rolls. The '76 TI Ike in the '75 set is a case in point.