| Author |
 Replies: 16 / Views: 2,851 |
|
New Member
United States
2 Posts |
Buying individual coins can be rather expensive. Since buying a complete year mint/proof set may only be a few dollars more than just buying one coin of that year, would it be wise to buy sets to complete collections, penny, nickle, dime, quar., halfs, etc., or keep the sets together/unbroken. For example, one Kennedy half cost me $3.50 but the mint set was $5. I want to break it open, but am I damned if I do, or damned if I don't. I have always had an interest in coins and a few years ago I quit stuffing them in jars and started organizing them, now I'm hooked. |
|
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
1510 Posts |
thats a good thing--now get some albums to put them in
Retired USAF 1983-2003
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
1590 Posts |
I find it is cheaper to buy the mint sets and bust them open that the individual coins. I'm buying uncirculated mint sets for about $5 to $7, and the high end was for the 40 percent Silver. If you bought them online you figure with shipping it would cost you at least one dollar a coin. With each set having a minimum of 10 coins, that means it would cost you $10 to get the same amount of coins. And if you were buying the $5 sets you could have twice as many coins, twice as fast!
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
968 Posts |
Just be very careful handling those coins (use gloves). Proof and Mint State coins are very unforgiving to mishandling, such as getting a fingerprint on the coin.
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
790 Posts |
Last year I bought a complete run of mint and proof sets from 1965 up. I busted them all out and filled in a new set of Danscos. I got all the money for this selling old silver I had bought years and years ago at around $5 an ounce. Additionally, since I was looking for all of them rather than an individual year, I was able to buy big lots on ebay that included 10 years in a single lot. Great bargain I think, and now I've got an incredible set of Danscos to boot. |
|
Bedrock of the Community
United States
11951 Posts |
Break them open. I know I have busted over a hundred mint and proof sets .. just this year.
If your buying a common mint set for $5 to $7 dollars it will be a very long time before it
will increase in value. If you ever want another common mint sets you can just buy one.
|
|
Bedrock of the Community
United States
10284 Posts |
The upside .... you can end up selling lots or individuals of the coins in the mint sets you do not want.
The downside .... Some coins mint state conditions in mint sets can be atrocious when you look at them more closely.
If you are just filling holes, fine but if you are building a MS65+ set you may not get what you were hoping for.
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
1590 Posts |
True NickelGuy. But most of the envelopes have been opened and you can get real picky on which sets you want to buy. I recently bought a 72 Uncirc set for $5, even though I already had filled those holes. Why? Because one of the nickels was a full step with no nicks or marks of any kind on the column.
|
|
Moderator
 United States
187446 Posts |
I have no problem with this. I have been known to break open a proof set or two in my time.  |
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
3294 Posts |
I got a mint set for the 1970D half and the 1996W dime for my type set. It's not cheating in my book :)
|
|
Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
To fill those spots in Albums I used to go to coin shows and buy a loose proof of almost every type, every year. Then One day I said to myself, SELF, what are you doing? Just buy the entire sets from the Mint and break out all the coins for the Albums just like the dealers do. Which is what I now do all the time.
If you check around you find the value of most proof and Uncirc sets is not really going up enough for me to collect those complete sets.
|
|
New Member
 United States
2 Posts |
I guess the consensus is to use those sets. Actually, what I'll do is start new Unc collections in Dansco's and keep the old ones to use for my pocket change.
Thanks All
|
|
Valued Member
United States
335 Posts |
I don't do albums, so I would never cut em up.
|
|
Valued Member
United States
79 Posts |
I have broken up mint/proof sets in the past to fill my dansco albums. It seemed like a waste of money to buy each individual coin when it was considerably less expensive to buy the whole set and open them.
Others may not agree but it seems that there is an endless supply of back date mint and proof sets available.
|
|
Moderator
United States
187446 Posts |
 I broke apart my "collection" of proof sets back in the 1990's and never looked back.  |
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
7840 Posts |
If I was to break a mint set, I would obtain the keeper, and let someone else have (sell) the remaining coins. You never know, someone may be looking for that 1970-D (or P) quarter (or dime, nickel, cent) from the mint est that you obtained the 70-D half from.  I have quite a few broken mint sets (in their celo packaging) that I bought for the cheap (inexpensive), it was too good of a deal not to pass it up! Edited by oih82w8
10/04/2011 12:39 pm
|
| |
Replies: 16 / Views: 2,851 |
Posted 09/27/2011 02:11 am
