Posted 02/23/2009 2:35 pm
The way these numbers are reported is highly misleading and they seem to change a little each time they're reported.
Part of the problem is that there are actually two distinct sets of coins being reported. The mint made about 3.9 million three pc sets of 40% unc bicentennial coins on mint set presses. These were put into a few different types of packaging but the plastic sleeves had white stripes on one long side. Shortly before the end of the production period ended in mid-'76 they came to believe they had misunderstood the number authorized as a mintage ceiling. This caused a scramble in the last couple weeks to turn out about another 7.1 million coins of each denomination. These were struck on high speed presses and are very poorly made. They were unceremoniously dumped into 55 gallon drums (it looks like they were then rolled into storage). These coins greatly exceeded the demand which production had previously been geared to meet. As silver prices increased the mint did a fair job of matching it but apparently many of these were purchased at close enough to melt that they ended up in the furnaces in '79/ '80. All these poorer quality coins were packaged in a sleeve with no stripe. For many years buyers of the sets would specify that they wouldn't take the sets with no stripe.
Sales were abysmal since there were few repeat buyers and the remaining coins were destroyed in 1982. It's difficult to be sure how many and mintage figures can't be reconciled with what's actually seen in the marketplace. At least 6.4 million of each denomination was melted but it was likely much higher.
Like everyone else's these numbers are open to reinterpretation, I fear.
Part of the problem is that there are actually two distinct sets of coins being reported. The mint made about 3.9 million three pc sets of 40% unc bicentennial coins on mint set presses. These were put into a few different types of packaging but the plastic sleeves had white stripes on one long side. Shortly before the end of the production period ended in mid-'76 they came to believe they had misunderstood the number authorized as a mintage ceiling. This caused a scramble in the last couple weeks to turn out about another 7.1 million coins of each denomination. These were struck on high speed presses and are very poorly made. They were unceremoniously dumped into 55 gallon drums (it looks like they were then rolled into storage). These coins greatly exceeded the demand which production had previously been geared to meet. As silver prices increased the mint did a fair job of matching it but apparently many of these were purchased at close enough to melt that they ended up in the furnaces in '79/ '80. All these poorer quality coins were packaged in a sleeve with no stripe. For many years buyers of the sets would specify that they wouldn't take the sets with no stripe.
Sales were abysmal since there were few repeat buyers and the remaining coins were destroyed in 1982. It's difficult to be sure how many and mintage figures can't be reconciled with what's actually seen in the marketplace. At least 6.4 million of each denomination was melted but it was likely much higher.
Like everyone else's these numbers are open to reinterpretation, I fear.
Time don't fly, it bounds and leaps.
