Poll: What's Your Least Favorite US Mint Proof Set Package Type?

jbuck is absolutely correct. I thought someone might comment on this in the poll, which is why I indicated that in 1999 the sets were no longer sealed.

I never new/saw why the Mint changed from a sealed set to unsealed set (maybe it was because they doubled the lens count of a set with the State Quarters? did it save $ not to seal them?), but I mostly liked the change.

Those old sets were hard to open. I usually broke off a corner with a pair of pliers and then used a screw driver to separate the lens. The new ones are a piece of cake compared to that.

The upside is that it is easy to remove coins. It is also easy to replace a cracked or scratched lens if you want to. You can get a lens on ebay with no problem.

The downside is the sets are no longer tamper resistant. If you're buying sets on the secondary market you may need to examine them a little more closely to be sure they haven't been opened and tampered with in any way.