In Your Experience, What Is The MS Grade Of US Mint Sets...

About 5 years ago I was able to buy 200ish mint sets at face value. Without getting into actual grading, I've noticed that the 70's through the mid 80's mint sets don't have the prettiest coins. From about 85 or 86 on the quality of the coins goes up dramatically.

In order to really answer this question one has to have a feeling for the conditions that prevailed in the mid-1960's. The coin market had collapsed because of the removal of silver from the coinage and the mint and Congress doing everything possible to discourage coin collecting because of a massive coin shortage. They were highly successful and almost no one collected any coins made after 1964. Not only had silver been removed but almost all vestiges of quality were removed as well. Coins were haphazardly made by worn dies. There were no critics of the quality though because the public hardly noticed and collectors only cared about the removal of silver. As years went by there were improvements in quality but mintages had soared and production requirements demanded lower relief and ever higher speeds. Still nobody noticed and the mint made no real effort to get coins out that weren't mangled in the minting process. This was especially a problem with clads but really affected all mintages. But collectors weren't making sets of new coins and the hobby was dying by a dearth of new collectors. There was some hoarding of coins as "investment" but this primarily was relegated only to cents and only to those dates that were well made. There were some rolls of nickels, halves, and Ikes being set aside but these numbers were fairly low. Rolls of dimes and quarters tend to be pretty scarce up until 1997.

It was the announcement of the states quarters program that got large numbers of people looking at circulating coinage and criticizing the mint about quality that finally led to some real improvements in quality. The hobby woke up from its death throws in 1995 and it was the moderns that led the hobby upward. The states quarter program also led to the return of millions of baby boomers to the hobby who mostly just wanted to acquire complete sets of the things they couldn't afford as children. But there was continued pressure on the mint to improve quality. The mint responded in numerous ways but one was the failed introduction of the matte finish coins for mint sets in 2005. It's still very difficult to find new coins that are unmarked because of the use of the jumbo (balistic) bags but coins made for circulation now are generally better struck by better dies and less marked than anytime since the introduction of clads.

Big improvements in quality came about in ‘67, ‘70, ‘77, ‘97 and in more recent years. Some coins were virtually impossible to find nice even in the year of issue. I used to go city to city seeking nice coins and sometimes came up empty handed. Even when nice coins did appear there was a tendency for them to be gems at best. Choice and superb gems weren't generally seen nor were PL's. There were exceptions and it should be remembered that the flaws varied by denomination, date, and mint. The toughest thing to find were well struck coins made by good dies. There were high quality cents and Ikes made for circulation but these required effort to locate.

I didn't save extremely large numbers of coins made for circulation because I couldn't find a lot of gems. Now days this is really almost irrelevant for dimes and quarters since there aren't any rolls to search. If you do locate a roll odds are they are just typical coins which means they are atrocious. This keeps the value of BU rolls pretty low. Much of the value of these rolls resides in the fact that most varieties don't appear in mint sets so one has the choice of either searching the well worn coins in circulation or trying your luck with the rolls.

Mint set coins were made on special presses under higher tonnage and at lower speeds. There are other niceties like often the planchets or dies receive polish or dies are specially cut. All dies are virtually brand new since they are swapped out after only 30,000 strikes. Coins from brand new dies are easily found in the sets. These are very scarce in circulation coinage because clad wears a die smooth after only ten or twelve strikes so it's no longer identifiable as a new die. Mint set coins are also washed and dried before packaging.

Not all perfectly made coins go into mint sets. Each year there are significant numbers that go into circulation. The problem is those made for circulation are diluted by billions of other typical coins so finding them is an herculean task. Odds are good that most gems weren't saved at all. People simply weren't looking for nice coins or any other coins and they went into circulation and are now worn out. The early clads have now suffered so much attrition that more than half are gone entirely.

Mint set coins weren't really widely collected either. Why they were purchased at all is a mystery to me. There are numerous reasons but they sure don't seem to add up to the two million mintages. The large mintages have assured low prices which has led to phenomenal attrition on these as well. Quality is really hit and miss. It varies widely by year and within years. The ‘68 mint set is one of the finest and the ‘69 is one of the worst. Typical sets of these side by side will reveal enormous spread in quality. But you can find superb ‘69 sets with surprisingly little effort and horrid ‘68 sets. About 1 in 150 ‘69 sets will contain all choice coins and 1 in 80 ‘68 sets will be a dog. Up until 1980 this bunching of nice coins and bad coins in sets is pretty prevalent. After 1980 quality varies equally widely by individual coins but finding choice or bad sets becomes very difficult (apparently just random).

While the vast majority of mint set coins are well made by new dies there will be exceptions. Many coins will typically contain planchet marking and even the packaging equipment wiped out some coins like 98% of the ‘80-D half dollars. Some coins are excruciatingly difficult to find without scratches and gouges. The finest ‘88-D dimes were damaged in the ejection chamber. Even coins that came out extremely well can have severe problems like the ‘89-D cents were so well struck by such sharp dies that the copper was peeled right off the reverse lettering.

Proof Likes are found for almost all moderns in the mint sets and even in coins made for circulation rarely. Usually they are limited to less than about .25% in the sets. Some dates like ‘72-D will be highly PL and some like ‘81-P will have very muted PL properties.

As a rule of thumb nice gems will appear in about 2% of mint set coins and are quite scarce and almost always less than .1% in circulation issues. I consider looking for gems in mint sets to be about like shooting fish in a barrel compared to looking in rolls. But there is variation from denomination to denomination and date to date. Of course there is almost no choice for finding some moderns since coins like ‘69-P quarters just don't exist in original rolls. The big wholesalers who supplied these coins back in the day would disperse as little as a single bag and anything left at the end of the year would be returned to the bank. I've never see a roll of original ‘69 quarters available for sale. Of the few ‘69 mint sets that survive most of the quarters are ugly because of planchet scratches and corrosion. The "corrosion" can still be removed on most of these but the scratches are forever.

@Cladking- sir, I am in awe of that post. I learned so much information, and I'm sure other collectors on this board who are curious about coin quality will have gained an invaluable insight.

Thank you, very much.


As for cherry picking--- I guess this is why it is almost impossible to find Cameos and Deep Cameos in older proof sets in the wild.... although I did get a 1961 set with a Cameo Franklin at a Cash for Gold shop- and for melt at that...

As usual my friend, excellent post cladking!

What cladking is pointing out is absolutely true. The sad part is that the vast majority of collectors have ignored modern coinage. How many times have you heard collectors and dealers say "there's billions" to diminish their importance. The point is that ultra high quality, clean, EDS examples are indeed scarce to rare, not only because of poor mint quality, but because they were ignored.

I'm not nearly as versed as cladking on the other denominations, but I can tell you that with Lincoln cents, there's a huge problem for collectors. And this is regardless of the population of OBW rolls, mint sets or slabbed examples as all of the TPG's ignore die state and strike quality in favor of luster. Finding modern,well-struck, spot free, EDS cents is extemely challenging.

Thank you, sir.

Yes. There are many sets that are very heavily picked over. Indeed, some are picked over so much there's even a market for counterfeit envelopes to make sets look fresh. The old silver sets are all picked over for cameos as are the SMS sets. The Ike sets are mostly picked over for Ikes and the '70 sets are well picked for small dates and are getting pretty picked over for nice half dollars. Some of the varieties are starting to get less frequent I believe.

But keep two things in mind; the sets coming into shops from the public are sometimes being sold by the original owner or his heirs. These sets tend to be very fresh. Also keep in mind that some of those choice and special sets that have been cherry picked still exist intact. The person who cherry picked them won't bring them to a coin shop to sell but his heirs might. I have run into small batches of these before.

Yes! I think history will prove you right that the real challenge with moderns is strike. It barely matters what was saved and what wasn't because so few are well made. Cents are the best made modern but finding nice strikes from new dies is just inbcredibly difficult and when you do find one odds are good it will be marked up or have other problems. With coins like the quarters almost all the survivors will be from mint sets so people won't realize how bad typical coins were. Most of the '66 to '71 quarters had virtually no separation between the lettering on the reverse and the rim. Technically these coins passed straight from Unc to AG in circulation because of this. Sometimes the weakness was on the obverse instead but it affects about 80% of these. Try finding an early clad where the letters aren't "worn" right into the rim. Every year more these coins are lost or destroyed and the survivors have more wear.

One of these days they'll discontinue the cent and then we'll see how fast people discover how tough it is to find nice specimens. Most old coin collectors have the idea that all moderns are MS-70. The fact is most of the early memorials are gone forever and the survivors are XF at best. The Uncs for many dates can be pretty tough even in MS-65. Nice full strikes that are attractive can be extremely elusive.

I'd put them just a little lower but this might just mean I'm grading wrong.

Looking at only the '68 to '98 mint sets I'd grade the best dates at a weak MS-64 average and the worst at high end MS-62 on average. I'd say that overall they are MS-63 on average.