Future Of The United States Mint Set

Due to the expense of making coins I've heard that the US Mint is planning outsourcing coinage production to China. And why not, they are already making many of our coins.

As far as the falling mintages there's a combination of reasons with everything from spending money elsewhere, to being able to easily get them from dealers or at any time you want. There's probably three main reasons though in my opinion. The first would be that they just aren't a very appealing product to a lot of people especially newer younger collectors. The second would be the quality issues, many people have stopped dealing with the mint directly due to poor quality and would rather pick out a set on the aftermarket than deal with ordering directly from the mint. The third and what I think is likely the most important would be that most people have figured out that if you just wait a bit you can often get these sets cheaper on the aftermarket than buying them right away from the mint. Not only would you get getting it cheaper but you have the added benefit of picking out one you like.

At some point they may get under 100k though probably not by a whole lot, between grading and everything else there will probably always be enough interest for dealers (especially places like HSN) for orders to stay above 85k or so.

Carl's definitely joking hence the emoji

I wouldn't really say the issue was total cost, rather that a large chunk of that cost would be the same things being offered over and over in different packaging

They got expensive. I've been in and out of buying from the mint in my lifetime. Before the State Quarters the seta weren't too bad in price but right around that time, prices started increasing and I think it turned people off. Another factor was in 2005-2010 they were doing satin finish in the mint sets. People were buying mint sets for the best chance at great uncirculated examples, not for a new finish and something else to collect. Another turn off I think.

As far as proofs go they are nice but everyone knows the modern proofs aren't going higher as far as values. There just aren't many proof collectors unless they are just into proof coins... and again, expensive..

Those 1980s and 1990s sets were so mass produced you can't get a buyer for them above their face value. Again plenty of buyers got burned by paying mint prices and holding them just to find they are getting offered $1 for a proof set and like $3 for a mint set, if a dealer will even take them, most times they will say no and tell you to cracking them out and spend them. Another turn off for collectors.

I'm sure the mint will make whatevery they feel like and try to sell them for whatever people will pay for them and then if they don't sell they will do some bulk offer to the home shopping channels or something to dump the excess at still a profit for them but not as much of they sold to collectors, and home shopping will find ways to market them and get rid of them.

I like your optimism that the mint will decrease mintage's to a rarity level, but I seriously doubt it. There's many ways for them to make a few bucks and offload whatever they overproduced, it's not like they will make 2 million sets, only sell 1 million at their full asking price and then sit on the extra million sets.
They will sell them to a big buyer for a buck or two over cost and let them deal with the problem instead.
Those 3 million sets mintage numbers... there were never that many collectors of them. Dealers across the country are sitting on boxes and boxes of them that can't be sold and this trend continues still.

I quit buying both mint and proof sets in the early 2000's. It was just getting too expensive to keep justifying it.

Proof sets I get, but I have only bought two mint sets in eleven years. 2009 and 2019. Both times to get special cents.