Best Way To Gather Modern Common Coins 1968-1998

Mint sets and even proof sets for most of those years are quite inexpensive. Depending on your exact goals, this would probably be a less expensive way to acquire coins as opposed to buying them individually from a dealer.

Agreed, buy sets when you can - they will help to fill multiple Dansco (or other brands) albums as well

I agree 100%. Just buy sets and break them.

My bad, I guess I assumed MS when I referred to Mint Sets. But, yes MS/BU collection.
I must say thought, CRH videos on youtube is what got me back into the hobby I didn't look for them but one from Quinn's Coins popped up as suggestion and I watched him work on completing albums from coin rolls. It got me hooked again.

I've always thought the best bet is to pick through sets finding the best one. I've spent many hours in coin shops pouring through these sets, It might sound expensive but it's not as bad as it sounds since the dealer will let you mix and match the two packages if he knows you're paying a premium price for them. You'll find three or four nice coins in one pack and combine it with three or four in another. Along the way you might see a lone spectacular Gem and combine it with a Gem for the other mint package.

The only downside is that when you're done you're going to have some duplicates. Mostly these will be nice coins that you can use for trading. The dogs are best just spent.

You aren't going to be able to find original BU rolls of dimes and quarters because nobody ever saved them The ones you see all came from mint sets and are composed of the nicest 75% of the coins with the top 2% removed. These rolls are great for wholesalers and most collectors but tend to be pricier than they used to be and you'll get lots of duplicates. Unless you want coins to trade I'd avoid them and look in sets for nicer coins because it will be cheaper, you'll have fewer duplicates, and you'll find a few of the top 2%.

You can find original rolls of cents and nickels and these are more often inexpensive so might be worth checking. You can find some great coins in original rolls but more often the coins are all dogs. They tend to be poorly struck by heavily worn dies for most dates but very nice specimens can be found.

For the "stopper" dates There are souvenir sets. These are getting very pricey and the '82-P is rarely seen but you can buy singles for less than the set price. I am finding these more regularly but at higher prices up to $300 for all four. Singles will be substantially cheaper.

A few warnings. Some coins will be very hard to find nice in sets and a lot of the coins have tarnished. Usually the hazing and tarnish come off in acetone or a surfactant but some do not clean up very often. The '68 dime for instance usually can't be restored. The'68 cent always has carbon spots which never come off making it VERY tough. The '69 quarter is a dog 90% of the time but nice specimens clean up well. The philly ike in the '75 set is almost always a corroded dog and doesn't clean up about a third of the time. This one is tough. '84 cents with nice surfaces, no carbons spots and little marking are quite rare. Watch out for carbon spotting around the periphery of '88 and '89 philly cents. Some of the late '80's and early'90's clads are hard to find with little marking. Watch for a lack of marking on the top of the half dollar shield. If you're including the silver '76 coinage keep your eye open for the coins that co9me in the set with no white stripe. These coins are completely different than the ones made for collectors. Don't worry about finding nice ones because even the best are dogs.

The collection isn't as tough as it might sound. Remember if only 10% of a coin are nice it just means you'll have to check about 10 sets to find one. This only takes a few minutes.

There are a few good retailers out there who can be trusted to send decent coins that they advertise. But don't think they're going to send you a nice gemmy 1976-P type I ike for a few dollars. ALL BU '76 type I ikes wholesale at $4 each and if they have to pick through a bunch of sets and then soak the coin in alcohol they are going to charge a great deal more than $4.

I never thought nice attractive chBU modern sets would get so difficult to assemble. But these coins have been neglected for more than half a century and there's never been a real market. Then the registry came along and burned off a large percentage of existing mint sets as people continued not to pay attention to the coins. There never were any BU rolls and now the mint sets are nearly gone too. In the old days lots of shops had boxes and boxes of these sets sitting around gathering dust because even then there were not many buyers at wholesale. These sets are all gone now. Few were even picked over. Most of the coins were hauled to the bank or placed in the dealers' cash register. Then the registry chewed them up and spit them out and finally they all tarnished. Sets are still going into the cash register because even though prices are higher now postage costs are through the roof and most of the sets are tarnished or hazed. Dealers don't want to clean a $2 coin that will sit around for months before it's bought for a $1 profit so the coins go in the cash register.