Mint Sets In...mint Sets Out. Argh.

Mint sets are NOT simple business strikes. They are handled differently and struck better. Higher pressures and I thnk twice but could be wrong there. Mnt sets are supposed to be the highest levelof quality for the business strike type coins. Graded MS 69 and 70 coins almost always come from mint sets, NOT unc business strike coins. I doubt you could pull many 68s from those let alone 69 or 70.

@jbuck - that's my understanding too. UNC sets get only one strike.

Yes. Details aside, the important thing is that they are different.

Conder, if you mean after some circulation, no you can not. If you mean straight from the packaging, I would disagree. The difference in the quality and sharpness of strike is usually rather obvious. Granted, I have not handled thousands of coins, but what I have dealt with it is fairly obvious.

And that is my point. There is a tremendous quality difference between regular circulation strikes coins and mint set coins. And usually you can see that difference. That's why MS 69 and 70 S come from mint sets mainly. I would lay money it is 99% of the time.

There really aren't any MS-70 business strike (mint set or otherwise) moderns. MS-69's are exceedingly rare except in cents. Even MS-68's are not very common. In some denominations and dates the top end tends to be MS-67. Eisenhower dollars tend to top out in 67 but a few dates are still 66 I believe.

Yes, the bulk of these coins do come from mint sets but don't forget there are numerous moderns that don't exist at all in mint sets. Also most varieties don't appear in mint sets. While top end coins tend to come from mint sets this is not a hard and fast rule. Many moderns are scarce in rolls because they weren't saved. A 1969 quarter roll, for instance, is rare. While mint set coins are normally well struck some of the coins are notorious for problems such as '80-D half dollars are scraped about 99.5% of the time. '68 pennies are usually corroded (99.9%).

The Ikes are among the worst mint set coins. There were a few Ike rolls and bags saved and quite a few of the high end coins come from this source.

Mint sets are not the end all be all of modern collecting for many reasons.

If you had a hundred rolls of 1969 quarters and one roll of mint set 1969 quarters the best ten coins would be from mint sets. 39 or 40 of the best strikes would be from mint sets depending on luck of the draw.

I'm certainly not disagreeing with you but merely pointing out that usually you can positively identify a coin as either being from a mint set or regular issue. In practice you can usually tell with fairly good regularity but once they're out of the mint set you can't really be sure most of the time.

Finding Gems in mint sets is like shooting fish in a barrel. Finding them in rolls can be almost impossible and is always difficult.

I have never wanted a refund, simply replacements. But they refund the money when they receive the returns then turn around and re charge for the new items going out (absolutely stupid way of doing it IMO) and that goes right on in.

I got my replacements yesterday, and while there were still some coins that made me growl, much better on the whole. I went ahead and cut open one set for the Danscos and the other went into the storage box.

Now to straighten out the mess with the returned silver proof sets. *sigh*