Higher Price Of 2012 US Presidential Dollar Proof Set

Well it was the first year the President dollars went NIFC. I realize that that shouldn't matter for proofs because none of them were made for circulation but it does seem to make a difference. I also believe the sales of the 2012 were cut off early that year. Finally at the time the 2012 set was the lowest mintage set in two or three decades. People went a bit crazy and the price of the set got run way up. Since then there have been low mintage sets but they just didn't seem to attract peoples attention.

Now psychology come into play. The 2012 set, even though it is NOT the rarest set remains high simply because it IS high. You would expect the rarer sets to go up and the 2012 to go down, but that doesn't happen quickly. Collectors chase the high priced 2012 set and that extra demand and interest tends to keep the price up even though it shouldn't be up there.

I was in the same position and was just bidding for a lot of 2012 proofs with no luck.
Finally, last week a seller accepted my best offer for a mint-condition set. I am actually looking for a nice 2011 set, because the one I got is in rather bad shape.

The 2012 S silver Kennedy proofs are in a similar situation. They are only now falling below $100 on ebay after being three figures for a long period of time. Remember 2012 was the middle or tail end of the last recession and proof coin mntages were lower that year and then started increasing again after that. See this page for numbers.: https://www.coincommunity.com/us_proof_sets/

Conder101 nailed the speculation psychology.