Collecting 1981 Mint Sets: My New Coinweek Article

I've thought the day moderns would spike higher was at hand for 40 years now (1972). In the early days I was far more concerned with the rush coming too soon before I had the chance to complete all my collecions and take a financial position in the coins. Of course everything is different now and I've been promoting the coins for over a quarter century.

But, I still believe each day that goes by not only brings us closer to the day of reckoning but makes the spike ever stronger. Every day more of these coins are being lost because there is no demand. Mint sets get cut up because they sell for peanuts and all or most of the coins enter circulation. Circulation simply works as a meatgrinder that soon removes the coins from collectible condition.

I assumed the prices would skyrocket because most of the coins were as scarce as the '50-D nickel after only a few years. The '50-D got up to a couple hundred dollars in today's money. But over the years the populations of these coins have been severely impacted by attrition caused by lack of demand. To make matters worse today's collector doesn't especially value typical condition so everything from a clad dime to a bust dollar has only nominal value in typical condition. Collectors demand quality which means no scrapes or excessive wear on a bust dollar and Gem or near-Gem quality for a clad dime. Here is where moderns get tough; in near-Gem condition. Uncs are scarcer than '50-D nickels and Gems can be downright impossible.

But collectors don't know this and generally don't know that mint sets tend to not be picked over. They don't know that for the majority of issues the finest coins are in the mint sets. They don't even know that almost all coins in mint sets are well made and it can be very difficult to find well made coins in rolls. They don't know that many moderns aren't available in rolls because they weren't saved.

They simply don't care about collecting the coins because they percieve them as common and debased junk. But every day that goes by there are more people who use the coins day in and day out and don't associate the loss of silver with them. Rather than seeing the heavy hand of government destroying good money they see old and new coins being used to purchase things and make change. Each year there are more collectors and fewer surviving mint sets. When these trends conflict prices will rise and then spike as everyone suddenly wants to get on board.

This is happening with modern coins all over the world and I don't know why it wouldn't happen with ours (at least in the long term).