Will The Sleeper Awaken?

I have a limited budget, and the things which do move me emotionally are dominating it. Were the money freer, I would absolutely be backing up my words with actions.

A few factors interfere with a broader bullishness on my part, though. First, the NIFC issues - they're not suffering any attrition, tend to have been produced in high quality, and therefore even mintages under a million will ensure easy availability for collectors wishing to acquire a nice example into the foreseeable future. It's unreasonable to expect individual collector interest exceeding a million examples; heck, I doubt anything possibly excepting Lincolns will ever command such demand.

Circulation issues have been produced in ridiculous abundance over the last fifty years, and even factoring major attrition unless there is some sort of mass-recall/melting event in the future, they will never be "uncommon" except in the rarest of cases. However, they were produced with such casual craftsmanship - forced by the production volume - that higher-graded examples are rarities from Day One and even though more will surface into the future (some current rarities will lose their scarcity) it's still as sure a bet as can be imagined, in the broader view.

I believe we're just looking at different percentages of the "bigger picture" here.

I have some of these rarities and some I have in quantity. I have many safety deposit boxes full of what I believe are scarce and rare US and world moderns. But the scarcity of some of these coins is really far greater than most people realize. My favorite example is the '82-P quarter. If you look at the pop reports you'll come to believe this coin is common in high grade but that's not true. it's not true because the services give coins pass when they are badly struck by worn dies. If you want a true Gem then I'm not too certain even a single coin exists. I have some beauties but even my finest example was only about the 500th coin from die pair that wasn't quite perfectly adjusted. It's a full pressure strike though. I'd grade it MS-64++. To give an idea of how bad these are all the souvenir set coins are atrocious. They are poorly struck by mediocre dies. A few of these are pretty clean but there's nothing I'd grade over MS-64 but the services give some of these MS-67.

There are lots of neat varieties as well and most of these will only be available in VG or F because nobody has collected these. Some are tough enough that my best is only AU or XF. Of course there are rarities and scarcities I don't have at all.

I'd be happy to discuss any of my collections in the general forum. Essentially I collect most 20th century tokens and medals though I have mostly only the most common issues. I don't collect coal tokens but most everything else. The only collection that even approaches being "world class" is my telephone token collection. I have a few issues not even listed by Targonsky or Earl. I have fairly decent collections of Ind and DC transportation tokens but no rarities.

Agreed.

From what I have read, the LWCs were still kicking around in free circulation as late as the 70s. "Modern" (1959-2008) coins are an order of magnitude more common, and we may still see 1960s coins in circulation in the 2060s, especially if most coins spend years at a time motionless in jars and buckets.

I suspect the *true* sleeper coins will be the last handful of zincolns that show neither plating bubbles nor zinc rot. That is of course, assuming that collectors in the coming decades still care about the ultra-high grades... I certainly dont.

There is also a good chance that future collectors expand beyond just US coins. In recent years, certain world mint sets (particularly India) went from being junk bin items selling for a couple bucks to $500+ items at auction.

I started collecting in 1972, and sure, wheaties were kicking around. But they weren't as abundant as you might think. Certainly more were available then than today, but while it wasn't uncommon, it still was a thrill to find one.

Obviously the frequency of that thrill has diminished markedly since then.

Huge fan of the 2009 mint set cents. I do believe they may be a good sleeper, but it's going to take time. I continue to buy the cents when I can get a deal and they haven't toned like so many have.

IMO 2009 is not a sleeper at all because so many hoarded them uncirculated. At best the UC set may be the rarest but they still made well over half a million which is a lot. With that said, I do enjoy the 2009 cent designs.

I think the 2009 UC cents demand would increase once folder/album companies include these varieties in their products like the 1982 cents.