1960-2025 Rolls Assembled From CRH, How To Reduce The Pile?

Here's a possible suggestion. Buy some nickel coin books, Whitman or other. Sort out partial sets for each book into sandwich bags. Hand a book and a bag to kids. You can do this at a local coin club, church, relatives, whatever. Watch their eyes light up.

Anyway, the reckoning begins:

This is just the thing. There are very very few BU rolls and the mint sets are nearly gone. The coins are cheap cheap cheap because there is no demand.

But this is changing. People are beginning to collect mint sets, BU singles, denominational sets, and even BU rolls. Prices are soaring. Supply is drying up.

What people don't realize is most BU rolls contain ugly poorly struck coins, many mint sets have tarnished coins, and the few coins that survive in circulation are typically low grade culls.

In four or five years we're likely to see coins like a nice well struck 1971 nickel in XF go right through the roof.

Cut the 2006-2022 rolls from 11x down to 1.5P/1D, plus a mostly full 1P/1D. I will keep the best 2.5 rolls. The remaining pair, I will keep as donor rolls in case someone needs some nice modern nickels. If they don't come to any use, at least I know which ones to toss in the wrapping bucket.

Not sure which ones are next. Maybe the 1970-1979 rolls.

Started with: 3x 1960-1963, 1x 1968-1969 d,s, 2x 1970 d,s, 2x 1971-1979

Ended with a half roll of actually nice 1960-1969 and two-thirds a roll of actually nice 1970-1979. I think I have also stashed many very nice individual coins in little packets, which can probably now be merged into the rolls.

The other 5-7 rolls worth of coins were spenders. They've found a new home in the wrap bucket, soon to be deposited at my dump bank.

Ya gotta forgive an old man who started collecting Buffalo nickels from pocket change and actually completed most of the set before buying the stoppers in AG. I wasn't obsessed with the horns the way other collectors were but I did want to see the detail as well as tails and feathers (et al). Grading was strictly determined by the horn and an uncirculated '26-S often had less horn detail than a VG or F. It became something of a habit to look for the best example I could find with a nice crisp strike. It didn't need to be perfect but the fuller the better and I still often prefer a VG to a VF in SOME series.

W\hen I started collecting clad in 1972 strike was even more important because the vast majority of those early coins were weakly struck by worn dies. It's hard to imagine how bad they were because most of them are gone now or the weakness is masked by heavy wear. There aren't any BU rolls around because people didn't want to save the poor strikes so the abysmal quality of those early years is not readily apparent. That flat 1966 quarter you're seeing in circulation might be a lot higher grade than you think because like the Henning nickels most of them were made in VG.

I still like nice crisp strikes and full detail on clad even though the vast majority of what the mint produces is of much better quality and most specimens are something a collector could be proud to own.

I mentioned the '71 nickel as an example. This was the very first nickel that was quite well made and despite the fact more than 2 out of 3 was fairly well struck from newly improved hubs and dies, still nobody saved it. I never saw more than a handful of rolls and the coins from mint sets were spent. Despite nice strikes and full detail it was ignored. The coin does have a little bagmarking problem even in the mint set so in addition to its low mintage nice attractive coins in any grade are anything but common.

Other coins like the '66 nickel are going to be a real problem in BU if people want details on their coins. Forget Full Steps because you'll be lucky to even see the pillars and dome.

To each his own.

Over coffee on the patio this morning, I pruned the three rolls of 1980-1989 nickels down to two-thirds of a roll. I tossed everything with stains, small verdigris spots, and any visible metal damage on the rims.

I am sure that for these years as well, I have some random mint set coins to add into the mix, as well as nicer coins stashed in the packet tub.

I am going to leave the 1982-1983 rolls alone for the time being.

I think the Inspect Later rolls can be added to fresh rolls from the credit union, and just examined thoroughly.

Louisiana Purchase nickels might be next. Anybody who needs a decent AU/MS Philadelphia set of the four LAP coins (2004-2005), speak up now. Those only cost a single stamp to send.