Something I'm not Understading

On C&C the price for PL65 is $9 not $40, that's not even enough to pay for the cost of grading.

Apologies @ DBM, you are right. I believe my 25 cents is a PL-66 (but I'm very far from an expert). But that aside, why would the whole coin set sell for around 4$ when a single PL-65 25 cent is 9$. And thats just 1 of 6 coins?.

Modern mint sets tend to be inexpensive because a lot of pseudo collectors buy them, and then a few years later sell them for a fraction of what they paid. Individual coins in the sets may appreciate and then collectors buy the mint sets and take the individual coin they want out, and the value of the mint set goes up as the value of the coins in them goes up.

I' have a 1965 set that I was going to snip apart and put the coins in 2x2s for my album. I think buying the set for this purpose is cheaper than buying individual coins in similar grade, a cost effective way to add some nice coins to my collection no?

I bought a 1965 PL set for what it would cost just for the silver dollar alone in MS. It's much better buying the set than buying the coins individually.

wildflowerAB, good points, thank you :)

I've always found this confusing. Charlton doesn't list PL grades after 1968, yet I've seen TPG graded coins up to 1977 (for PL-65 anyway).

So what is the last year that each grading company will assign a "Proof-Like" grade? And how consistently is this followed?

I understand what you're saying and although I have no answer, I'd suggest the future of coin collecting as a hobby lies in Uncirculated Sets. What I mean by that is it's not likely that new collectors are going to take a sudden interest in collecting coins 100+ old. It would be more likely they'd collect more recent issues and after that, then accumulate older years including silver. Amassing a collection of say, even 25 years of circulated coin X 6 demonizations......150 separate coins, that gets to be very labour intensive in my opinion. The chance of soon losing interest in the hobby is high.

Yet sometimes I get the impression a certain amount of distain is directed towards Uncirculated Sets by the coin collector community in general, sort as if the coins in those sets are not "real". Yet look at the price and popularity of PL coins from the 50s which counters that notion.

I suppose another issue is that most coin collectors are older - and so am I - yet I can use myself as an example --- when I was much younger I didn't have a whole lot of appreciation for "old" things. Yet now as an older collector, my joy is in older coin but I need to step back and appreciate what appeals to younger people is most often not the same thing. So I can totally understand why younger folks who choose to collect coin firstly in the years they are most familiar with. And it's certainly not a good thing if us existing collectors discourage new collectors from the hobby by making it too expensive or too difficult.

That said, the value of Uncirculated Sets is based on market demand but whether it stays low or gradually rises may be a reliable indicator of future popularity of the hobby. I'd certainly like to see it increase because it's a fun and rewarding hobby, lots of learning opportunities along the way, that indeed can last a lifetime.