Collecting 1981 Mint Sets: My New Coinweek Article

Another interesting read, thank you for sharing.

@basebal21- the key to that strategy is get yourself some Saflips (my preference- though you may like 2x2 cardboard holders... and start assembling sets. I put the best examples in the flips and the ones that I know I won't send it to get graded in tubes. As I buy sets, I separate the coins into two classes- potential submits and tubes. When the tubes of choice BU coins fill up- I sell them. After I've assembled a couple dozen "keepers" I go through them again and select only the best ones... these will tend to grade MS-65 or better. The key is pattern recognition and having enough of a sample size of nice coins to be able to learn how to have discriminating taste. I pretty much know for series such as Ikes or Susan B. Anthony dollars or Kennedy half dollars what I have in hand before I submit. dimes are tougher, in my opinion, as are nickels and by far I think cents are the hardest series... as copper is so re-active.

Good read even though I don't collect coins this recent

@basebal- My recommendation- build BU rolls of the coins that aren't worth saving and list them for sale at a price, i'd say 2.0 to 2.4x face (asking for more is a little greedy and I can't promise that they'd sale. I have been keeping a spreadsheet of my sunk cost, percentage of coins I pull out, and what I submit. Remember, you can actually sell holdered coins and get your money back (in most cases- unless you totally blow it and the grade comes back MS-62 or MS-63... Just monitor what your costs and what your returns are and you'll be fine. Besides, after a few months of this and you'll know the deal for any particular date and after that, it's off to the races, man.

@CladKing- you are right about the "D" reverse. Travesty really that such an important RDV isn't even acknowledged by PCGS at the moment. As always, I greatly appreciate your comments- and input.

scissors and a soft, non abrasive textile cloth... Ultrasuede or a similar type fabric should be fine- but anything soft- be sure whatever you put it on is not coated with corrosive chemicals. you can even cut each coin out individually and slide them down onto your hands, being sure to hold only the rims. Let me know how you do!

I always tell people, especially beginners to sets, that the best way to really see the difference is to get a stack of just one date and mint packages together and go through looking at each individual coin in turn. Start with say the largest coin in the set (half dollar in this case) and look at each Philly half one after the other. A few will just "pop" out at you as being clearly superior. Depending on the specific coin this can be anywhere for every twelfth coin ('72-D quarter) to every one hundred and fiftieth coin ('76 tI $1). When you get enough of these coins that pop look at them right after another and about every tenth coin will pop or be head and shoulders above the rest. I save the first group and the second group are often worth submitting.

You can just cut the coins out as you go along the lines thus keeping the coins in the mint plastic. This will sometimes allow air in so it can be risky for the coins. There are several short cuts you'll lerrn with practice. I like to go through all the sets before cutting any to save entire sets if every coin is Gem. Complete Gem sets were common before 1980 when robots started packing these. Indeed you'll see lots of all bad sets and all nice sets. It looks like the letters to the editors that used to say the new sets were awful and the same sets being referred to as good as proof sets were both right. I also save intact variety sets unless they are very unattractive.

Another nice thing about looking at the coins one after another is you're a little more likely to spot varieties. I just found a brand new unreported 1992-D quarter variety the other day in a mint set. Sorry, no picture, but the PUP is a greater distance between the B in LIBERTY and the bust. It could be caused by being hubbed only once but I'll just set it aside for now. It's very Gemmy too.

@basebal- you said proof sets, didn't you mean mint sets? you can do better than 10-15 bucks.

Clad I definitely agree one day a lot of the modern sets will see a nice spike with the number that get broken open. When that day will be however I have absolutely no idea. I would guess some of these older ones are starting to approach rare territory by now for set standards, there just doesn't seem to be a huge market for them except for searching for gen coins.

My local coin shop lets you search pretty much anything besides rolls before buying it. Hopefully a quick glance over of the sets at the shop will eliminate any terrible sets but I am not sure what their inventory for the 81s are. They have a wall with all the sets but from memory I think most of them are from the 90s and on but I've never really taken that close of a look.

I figure worse comes to worse I could always just use the not so great coins at face value or try and bundle them in a lot of some sort. But probably will just spend them With ebay fees I dont really view it as worth it to really take a lot of time making the rolls and listing them ect if sya those 20 pennies will only sell for 2 or 3 dollars. Now if I could bunble 10 or 20 SBAs and sell it for 30 or 60 then that would certainly be worth the effort. But I do think Ill go through 20 batches of 20 before sending anything in.

I dont expect to make a lot of money by any means, or really any money. Just looking for something new to try see if its fun or not and if I do happen to get lucky on one or a few that would be fantastic. If not itll probably be the end of the experiment at least for a while anyway.

I really appreciate the help