How Do You Feel About Special Mint Sets?

Well the ones "tossed into furnaces" won't need to be worried about anymore. Light haze can be taken care of with an acetone soak. And if the sets are selling today for around 10$ they can't have gone up in cost that much. It seems you just don't like them for some reason.

All the ones on ebay have been thoroughly checked by multiple collectors at this point. IMO, they are exactly that, the lower end of the spectrum. You MAY get lucky with the right seller, but I doubt it.

I would never buy one of these from pictures. The all look good at arms length. But when you get in close, you see just how crappy or simply uninteresting they can be. I've passed on 100x more than I've purchased.

Another amazing find at a coin show among a sea of mint and proof sets. To the dealer it must have looked like it just browned - junk to him, treasure to me! Liberated and saved, now in an airtite.

I find the whole concept humorous.

The mint was so busy blaming coin collectors for all the problems caused by coin shortages, while ignoring the market forces that were actually driving it, that it stopped making mint and proof sets. Then the very market force that they were denying existed, and the money they were leaving on the table forced them to create a replacement.

I knew pretty early on this might be a problem. There are oddball coins made for circulation that are non-typical and Gem. How could these be distinguished from the different types of Gems made for the the SMS's? I put far less effort into seeking and setting aside nice Unc coins of these years in part for this reason. That they were exceedingly scarce certainly affected the equation as well. Over the years I've found a few dozen SMS issues that could be mistaken for BU and some that can be mistaken for proofs. I've seen a few that probably are technically proof.

The '67 quarter roll is by far the toughest coin to locate in these years. While this coin is better made than earlier dates it's elusive anyway especially in nice chBU because many many early BU clads were put back in circulation by people who just kept saving new coins every year despite the change in metal content. There weren't many but $10 was a lot of money in those days so people lightened what they had saved. Apparently they tended to save the first clads and spent the few '67 quarters they had set aside.

Ironically someone had quite a few '67 sets and wanted the quarters so they swapped BU roll coins, now much more scarce and valuable, into the sets. He used some fairly nice coins but they obviously aren't SMS.

I paid little mind to the SMS until the late-'70's. I knew there were special coins in them but the only special ones I knew were too scarce to bother seeking. I suppose mint sets were getting few enough in number I had a little time left over when I was searching dealer inventory so started looking at the SMS last. By the '90's I was looking at them first.

nice examples Thad.

They can't be since proofs were not struck. But coins like that do go to show the spectrum of what can occur with fresh dies and good luck in handling!

You and I know this but I've seen six or eight SMS that look like proofs. These coins are all specially made with special dies on special planchets. Some planchets are even polished and the coins are intended as "proofs" but are struck only once. I've seen a few that appear to be struck twice. These aren't monster heavily cameo coins from new dies but they all have subdued luster and appear to have been struck twice. They are not brilliant like proofs but have a more matte appearance. The most dramatic I found myself and is a '66 quarter.

A lot of rarity hides in these sets.