Increasing Mint Set Quality - Are They Still Business Strikes?

Who knows?

But this is largely a philosophical question and can be addressed from my perspective.

Industrial operations have standards at every stage of production. While no standards are universally upheld it is possible for any specific product to come out of a factory perfect after having every single step held to that standard. No matter how rare a perfect example of a standard issue coin becomes it is possible for one to exist. So mint set coins held to ever higher standards could always, at least in theory, be made by presses used to strike business strikes so long as the production parameters and dies remain the same.

This is why I set a few Gem non satin finish states coins even though I was selling by that time. BU roll coins can be quite scarce in Gem.

The last 60 years have been tumultuous times despite the vast advances made by the human race. I think it's important people remember the good things about these times and I hope my Gems help them to remember all the good things as well as the mayhem and destruction. Life is for the living but memory is what persists. It's just common sense the best should survive while everything else falls by the wayside.

It would be so much easier to answer if they had not abandoned the satin finish.

I have sat for hours at my local coin shop searching mint sets and rarely find even one coin in a set that makes it worth buying. Even when sets were still under $10. I still have so many quarters, halves and dollars that need upgrading. Great to hear from you College!

Cladking, you are the primary reason I started looking deeply into my moderns and an avid study of business strike quality. I love your stats and long ago you imparted onto me how rare some moderns are in even chBU.
I think now more than ever with the surging silver prices collectors will finally begin turning to moderns to fulfill their coin hobby desires.

Jbuck, you are the rock of this forum and always keep the threads rollin'

Vector, Thank you for pivoting my research on this thread toward 'brilliant finish' as those key words launched me in the direction I needed. Ultimately, this lead to finding the pop reports at PCGS for the women's quarters in MS67/68 which prove that there has been a significant shift in quality. This will save me hundreds of $$$ in the next few years in direct purchases from the mint. I believe the secondary markets will easily fulfill my desires for my sets at much cheaper prices. Finding the quality 'business strikes' I am looking for isn't going to be as difficult as it has been for the 70's - 2011.

I will still collect my BU rolls whenever I can find them at decent prices or free from the bank. I have seen coins like what cladking is talking about here...
When one pops out of a roll...it's magic, but oh so very rare.

The philosophical question still remains from this thread regarding the mint's product lines. I will ponder it and continue to seek advice. I will also keep the search alive for those 'true' business strike beauty's.

Vector, set another chair out at your table! We go work to do.

One of the things I've done since 1965 is to look and see how many nice attractive coins there are in each roll. I make the assumption that it's some distant point in the future w3hen the coins are all degraded and worn and then just count the number of nice attractive coins any collectors might desire for a set. In 1970 this number was about 25 and those nice coins were mostly beautiful XF's and AU's . By 1980 It was down to about 20 and the earlier coins were down to F. By 2000 I had redefined the parameters to include quarters only before 1982, and it was down to 10 and some coins were down to VG.

It went south fast from here. In 2010 there were only 5 nice quarters before 1982 per roll and I had to include grades and conditions I'd have called "dogs" in 1970. It was no longer possible to find many of the key dates at all unless you had a much larger sample size. Now days you're lucky to get two in a roll and these will be common date and mostly in only F condition.

The other coins are gone. You might find an XF but assembling a complete set a complete set of nice looking quarters in better than F is probably impossible.