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 Replies: 63 / Views: 7,098 |
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Valued Member
United States
233 Posts |
I got a 1951 nickel in change from gas station a few weeks ago. It wasn't pristine but it wasn't too bad either. About mid range grade I would say. It was better than the one my dad had in his coin folder so I swapped them.
Haven't got too many other older coins in change recently. Oldest is probably mid 70's for all denominations.
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
2270 Posts |
Quote:Boy where do you get these facts from? I can get mint sets all I want, the prices are low. You must live in an alternate country as clad coinage is plentiful. Just look at ebay you can get any coinage you want for a good price, this sky is falling really needs some fact checking. I certainly understand the sentiment. They made millions and millions of these sets and for 57 years now nobody has wanted any of them. The sets build up in inventories until they're coming out everyone's ears. But things have been changing without anyone noticing because the demand has been creeping higher for many years and the supply is still continuing to crash. It started with Ikes because collectors are looking for nice attractive coins and many mint sets have bad Ikes and most mint sets have corroded Ikes. So the prices of sets has been soaring and they are going to supply retail trade. It'd getting harder to find them at wholesale and prices have doubled. Most observers would be startled to know how shallow supplies are. Time don't fly, it bounds and leaps.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2270 Posts |
Quote:
I got a 1951 nickel in change from gas station a few weeks ago. It wasn't pristine but it wasn't too bad either. About mid range grade I would say. It was better than the one my dad had in his coin folder so I swapped them.
Haven't got too many other older coins in change recently. Oldest is probably mid 70's for all denominations. It's easier to find a old nickel in change than a 1971 and the older will be in better condition. People have been saving the old coins for half a century and then they get back into circulation in nice condition. People don't save 1971 nickels and they have mostly been used up and lost. While millions still exist they are very difficult to locate and most are a mess. There were fewer old coins in my sample than I expected but it was a small sample and other people are finding the same thing; it's very tough to put together a set of '65 to '03 Jeffersons in nice condition from pocket change. The coins are so few in number and so worn with many culls that collections of choice specimens are approaching being impossible. You can go to the corner coin shop and might be able to buy a nice '25-S in VF but there's not much chance they'll stock a '71 in F to AU. If they have an Unc it will be in a mint set and it will be ugly under a layer of tarnish. The point here is simple. You can find older nickels anywhere by the buckets full. Most of the '40-S nickels didn't wear out and then get lost forever; they were pulled out by collectors and saved. But there was no demand for the '70's nickels and now they are gone. The nice attractive F and better '70's nickels are gone. Sure, there's nothing to stop collectors from making VG sets except the door is closing on this as well since the attrition on nickels is very high and by the time a nickel gets in such low grade now days it is usually lost or cull. It's 2022 and these later nickels still aren't being collected and protected for future collectors. Meanwhile attrition on the survivors in circulation is over 4% and it may be even higher for mint sets. Lots of the nickels from mint sets are still just being spent because there's no demand and nobody wants to clean them. The only thing that ever made any modern "uncollectible" is the perception that they are common junk. Even though the nickel didn't change at all from 1964 to '65 other than a dramatic reduction in mintage there is a perception that the later nickels are tainted by being "new" and "debased". Even though there are numerous scarce varieties and most of these nickels are excruciatingly scarce in top grades there is a perception that they are all common and beneath the attention of real collectors. I have a hunch that it won't be long until collectors notice how tough a lot of these later are and start saving them too. This may touch off the widespread collecting of moderns when they see that these later dates are harder than the early ones especially in nice shape. Me, it will be a lot of fun to watch the affected coins disappear at 6 or 7% instead of only 4%. Or maybe it's already happening and I've missed a lot of the fun. I doubt it because I've seen no anecdotal evidence that anyone has any interest in circulating modern nickels. Time don't fly, it bounds and leaps.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2270 Posts |
Quote:
You can go to the corner coin shop and might be able to buy a nice '25-S in VF but there's not much chance they'll stock a '71 in F to AU. If they have an Unc it will be in a mint set and it will be ugly under a layer of tarnish. This lack of supply is complete. The dealer doesn't stock modern nickels because there is no demand. The lack of supply is incidental. And collectors don't save them because they are new. In fifty years there will still be people coming into coin shops with collections of buffalos in XF but there won't be any modern nickels coming in because the coins no longer exist. There are still millions of VG collections in circulation but if people continue to ignore them they'll be gone in very short order. Time don't fly, it bounds and leaps.
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Moderator
 United States
187950 Posts |
Quote:
I certainly understand the sentiment. They made millions and millions of these sets and for 57 years now nobody has wanted any of them. The sets build up in inventories until they're coming out everyone's ears... But things have been changing without anyone noticing because the demand has been creeping higher for many years and the supply is still continuing to crash. I have to agree. It seems like there are fewer and fewer pre-2000 sets for sale with every annual coin show I attend. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2270 Posts |
Most early mint sets were sold in packages of "five" because this was the order limit for many years. In 1968 the typical buyer was between 28 and 60 which makes them 91 years old today.
This is relevant because of the way mint sets have always traded; from heirs to the LCS to wholesalers who cut up and distribute the sets. Very few sets are intercepted at the LCS. One dealer told me he bought 2000 sets per year and sold two or three over the counter usually at Christmas time. The rest of the sets piled up until they were shipped off to wholesalers. These were always fresh original sets that were in no way picked over. But no one wanted them and if the wholesalers paid too little to cover shipping costs they were cut up and put in the cash register.
Over the years modern collectors have picked off a set here and a set there but most still follow the same trajectory to oblivion. Back in the early 2000's some date mint sets started going bad but no one seemed to notice. The problem started getting serious a few years back but still no one noticed.
Where people used to walk into coin shops laden with old pristine mint sets bought by the original buyers this is rare today. You simply don't see very many boxes of five and when you do they are as likely to be tarnished as any others. Most of the early sets today are stragglers and hangers on that are the result of the huge mintages that assure there will still be sets around even in another hundred years but has changed is that the vast bulk of the sets are now gone. Instead of millions of them there are now only hundreds of thousands well distributed and mostly unavailable sets. Some of these are nice gemmy sets in collections but most are simply ones nobody has bothered to cut yet because the sets are so neglected people can't even be bothered to destroy all of them. Many of them are in deplorable condition.
None of this would matter except nobody set aside rolls of most moderns. It might seem there are a few out there but in point of fact almost every modern roll was assembled from mint sets. This is why coins that don't appear in mint sets like 1967 MS q
Time don't fly, it bounds and leaps.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
19935 Posts |
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Nobody knows what any of the moderns are really worth because there's no demand. People always used to say that if anyone ever wanted modern garbage they could just get it from circulation. I can't tell you how many times I've walked into my LCS they had cut-up a few hundred mint/proof sets. He creates rolls of proof coins, tries to find high grade mint set coins and the rest goes into the register till. This is just ONE shop! If I go to my LCS and ask for memorial cents, all they ever have is a few rolls. When you look in the cases, unless it's slabbed, there are NO individual or boxes of pristine coins to look through. You're on your own! It's the same at shows, everything is about wheat cents. Memorial cents are considered worthless to dealers. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2270 Posts |
Quote:
I have to agree. It seems like there are fewer and fewer pre-2000 sets for sale with every annual coin show I attend. The sets are gone. They mostly used to go from the original buyer to coin shops to wholesalers with very few being sold to collectors in between, Most of these sets were destroyed by wholesalers and the smaller coins like the nickels put into circulation. Now there are lots and lots of stragglers but most of these are tarnished and not enough are on the market to meet the gradually increasing demand. Incredibly most of the nickels are still going into circulation even as the last of the sets are being destroyed because the demand in mostly for half dollars and dollars. While there are BU rolls of some of the nickels there are almost no rolls of the dimes and quarters. A lot of these coins are going to be tough if the demand ever materializes. Ikes do not exist in the numbers people think and the remaining mint sets can't even supply the growing market. But where is something like a '75 nickel supposed to come from? People didn't save these, the mint sets are gone, and these are getting difficult to find in circulation. The few surviving mint sets usually have tarnished nickels for this date. There is simply no supply because there are no collections. So long as very few people want such a coin asd right now the supply is ample. But what happens if many of the new collectors don't agree that moderns are "uncollectible". Soviet moderns have gone to as much as hundreds of dollars apiece even in XF even though there are still very few collectors. The same thing is starting in India and to a lesser extent in China. While US moderns aren't nearly as rare as Soviet coins the potential number of collectors is staggering. If many people want a nice attractive '82-P nickel in chBU there just isn't kind of supply like there is in older US coins. Time don't fly, it bounds and leaps.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2270 Posts |
Quote:
I can't tell you how many times I've walked into my LCS they had cut-up a few hundred mint/proof sets. He creates rolls of proof coins, tries to find high grade mint set coins and the rest goes into the register till. This is just ONE shop!
If I go to my LCS and ask for memorial cents, all they ever have is a few rolls. When you look in the cases, unless it's slabbed, there are NO individual or boxes of pristine coins to look through. You're on your own! It's the same at shows, everything is about wheat cents. Memorial cents are considered worthless to dealers. Dealers hate moderns. Almost every coin collectors more than 8 yeas old in 1965 hates moderns. The mint did everything they could to make collectors hate moderns but it was probably unnecessary because switching to clad would have been sufficient. It is odd the mint sold so many mint sets but they were pretty cheap in the old days and collectors knew that if they ordered early they could make a profit selling them. Dealers acquire mint and proof sets very cheaply because they don't want them and have no customers for them so they destroy them in huge numbers. Not all go into the cash register though and I've seen bags sets of proof dimes etc for sale at very attractive prices. Imagine buying 10,000 of every proof dime for only 25 cents each!! Even the wholesalers used to get buried in such coins. Now days I'd wager even the wholesalers would have a little trouble putting together a roll set of BU quarters. Cents are really the dark horse of moderns which is already enigmatic. All modern cents were saved in roll quantities but some are very few rolls and some BU rolls are exceedingly prone to tarnish. Mint set cents as well tend to have a lot of bad cents. Ones that are merely tarnished like other denominations tend to clean up fine but many have carbon spots and much more severe types of tarnish. The disappearance of mint sets means the primary source for cents is also disappearing. I haven't looked at pennies in circulation for a long time but I have to believe that with their huge attrition rates some coins like '70-S sm dts are gone in their entirety. I don't think you'll find one of these unless some dealer cut a mint set and accidently put it in the cash register. I doubt you'll find very many '70's or '80's cents in collectible condition. It seems almost all of the zincolns are spotted and the older coins tend to be culls. This is all going to accelerate greatly if many people start assembling sets. While there is a small BU roll market for cents it is not very ative because there are few retail buyers. This is what's driving the modern markets; Dealers won't stock moderns so collectors are turning to the retail markets and the retailers can't keep anything in stock. I believe there are so few BU moderns left that it would be impossible to stock all the dealers at anywhere close to current prices. In other words no dealer can sell a single modern until he buys one and if every dealer tried buying them they'd find a dearth of supply. This is similar to one of the reasons moderns don't trade; price guides list prices that are so low collectors won't pay market which is essentially choking the demand. The sheer number of collectors is causing this to change. While the number is still very low compared to other coins it is swamping the few retailers. Companies like Walmart are now trying to stock these as well and my guess is they won't hesitate to pay even higher prices for stock as long as they can sell at retail. BECAUSE dealers have ignored these markets the coins are trading much like all coins did in 1964; wholesale and retail. Wholesale has doubled. It's going to be difficult for most dealers to get into these markets if they ever get large enough that there are local customers because they hate these coins and they already put so many in the cash register (and still are). It's entirely possible that some retailers (like Walmart) could stock some of these coins right on their shelves before you can find them at your favorite coin shop. It's a strange world. Time don't fly, it bounds and leaps.
Edited by cladking
01/03/2022 2:31 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2270 Posts |
Back when these coins were still new I used to tell people that lots of moderns were quite scarce and they'd always say "what does it matter if nobody ever wants them". I'd tell them that these are US coins as surely as an 1877 cent or a '16-D merc and they tell me there were enough mint sets to last forever. Now most of these coins are gone. The few surviving mint sets are tarnishing and their prices are soaring and they still don't care. I still believe that in the long run there will be as much demand for a '68 cent as there is for an '09-S VDB. Demand is what really sets prices with collectibles, not supply. And the supply of moderns has simply been allowed to evaporate through neglect. Many foreign moderns are so scarce they have been increasing astronomically even without much demand. I'll be doing another sample soon but I'm really expecting the exact same thing because the coins are just gone. It will be years until we really know which moderns are common and which are scarce. I have some hunches. Time don't fly, it bounds and leaps.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2270 Posts |
Quote:
Demand is what really sets prices with collectibles, not supply. And the supply of moderns has simply been allowed to evaporate through neglect. I just hope collectors are going to save the mint set coins before they're lost to neglect as well. The longer the tarnish stays on these the less likely it can be removed. Some specific coins are already 90% destroyed by this tarnish. Time don't fly, it bounds and leaps.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
10635 Posts |
I have been searching through US cent rolls for years and years now. I very rarely encounter any of the 2009 cents. Seems like every Tom, Dick and Harry decided instantly that this "different" cent was worth hoarding, even though there is no demand for them. To the average non-collector "different" means "Honey, we've hit the jackpot!" Years from now, when there are no cents in circulation, the Lincoln Bicentennial cents will be found by the jar-fulls. Similar are the US 1976 quarters that are still being hoarded!
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1748 Posts |
The 1965 quarters are looking a lot like how I feel. Old and worn.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2270 Posts |
Quote:
The 1965 quarters are looking a lot like how I feel. Old and worn. Yeah, tell me about it! Here's a coincidence. I went out shopping today and got only two quarters; an oddly toned and attractive AU early states quarter and a 1965. The '65 is really quite remarkable as it is a very very attractive well made coin in VF-. The rim isn't even worn into the lettering! It's the nicest I've seen in about 15 years and I roll search a little. The '66 is actually the most worn of the clad quarters because almost all of them were in circulation by about 1970 and there were still '65's coming out of the backs of vaults in 1975. Then there's the fact that many people think the '65 contains a little silver or is valuable as the first year of issue so they save it. This means some sit out of circulation for years before being respent. Then there's the simple fact that almost all the '66 quarters were lightly struck with worn out dies so they looked worn even when they were new and a little wear makes them look pretty bad. The attrition on '66's is a little higher as well so finding a nice specimen is tough. I never imagined a quarter with a mintage of nearly a billion coins would ever be "tough" in any way, but nice F and better are. This coin is slightly available in BU rolls but they tend to be MS-60. The '65 roll is actually tougher and they often look OK but Gems are scarce. Most collectors just use SMS specimens. It's funny how slick the '65 feels and it is clean of all the tiny little scratches that plague most of the circulating coinage now days. I'm starting to wonder if there could be some other cause of these scratches than counting machines ands low velocity. They started showing up around 15 years ago and now most coins are banged up. It's a shame and it makes attractive sets much more difficult to assemble. Time don't fly, it bounds and leaps.
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Moderator
United States
187950 Posts |
Quote:
Most collectors just use SMS specimens. Guilty.  The Kennedy Dansco album has separate holes for SMS coins and I did not trust myself buying them raw back then, so I bought SMS sets to fill those holes. I set the other coins aside until I eventually replaced my other folders with Dansco albums. |
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Replies: 63 / Views: 7,098 |
First Page
Posted 01/03/2022 09:45 am
