rick

well, I guess you could always attempt to pick one coin by mint and year and accumulate as many of those as you possibly can over the next 50 years. Hide them all in your basement, so that the market gets an artificial read on its scarcity - then sell them off bit by bit....

I think I'm on to something - Binion would be proud.

cladking

If you want to try this with a regular issue coin than I'd recommend the 1968-D quarter. There are only around 40,000,000 remaining in circulation so the total cost will be a mere $10,000,000. The average grade of these 40,000,000 coin will be a low grade VG. There will be several thousand coins in VF and hundreds more in XF. There are none left in AU or unc but this needn't be a particular concern. Anyone who'd collect moderns may not want nice coins anyway, right? While you're accumulating these be sure to watch for the dozens of double dies that are in circulation and the hundreds of type "b" reverses that can be found on this issue.

You may find that the cost of finding all 40,000,000 of these coins will greatly exceed their face value.

The curious thing about collectors though is that while some people are thinking how common all the moderns are, they're out there trying to find the high grade pieces, DDR's, and type "c's. Best of all if they find one it will cost only a quarter rather than $10,000,000.

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Tempus fugit

Machiavelli

to say the least if i had a time machine i would get some money that was around in that time period.. go back to 1909 and grab a couple dozen rolls of new pennys... run farther back and buy a couple morgans from each year 1878 to 1904 brand new for face value... then of course jump around and buy all the goodies for face value like a bunch of war time nickles right off the bank shelfs then return to present time and be a bigggggggiiiiillliooonnnare... lmao... of course nothing like this is possible so i day dream some more...

Mach

tradernick

I originally said "I don't think there's anything in circulation today that will dramatically increase in value in years to come." and I stand by that. Of course there's always the chance of a yet undiscovered rare variety but the coins you mentioned...77 type D reverse quarter, 83 bu quarter 82 BU dime...aren't exactly in circulation, any more than 72 double die obverses are. When I said "in circulation" of course I meant modern day coins that we use every day in commerce.
But you are correct in that there could be some coins in circulation that could dramatically appreciate in value in the years to come. I still don't think so...but surely there's no guarantee either way.

I think the better bet for future appreciation is the slow and intelligent purchasing of key date material, focusing on undamaged, original pieces. But that's not exactly what the thread is about, either
Nick

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cladking

Read my post again. These coins are in circulation. Not only are these coins circulating without impedance but there are many hundreds of other coins represented by many tens of thousands of examples in circulation.

Today dies make more coins than ever but each time a new variety is discovered there are frequently only a handfull of examples known. This is caused simply by the fact that people aren't and haven't been looking for the coins. They believe there is nothing worthwhile in circulation so they don't look and they don't think about it. And these coins just keep circulating. The AU's become XF's which soon become VF's. Before anyone notices there are almost no nicer coins left. This doesn't apply only to the scarce clad varieties, it applies to most all the coins in circulation.

Even the cents which have been made by the billions are being discovered in new varieties all the time. There's one pictured on the front of the new Numismatic News right now. Do you believe that only this one example was made and an expert finally got it in pocket change after twenty years? Of course not!! There were hundreds of thousands of these made and no one ever noticed it because no one is looking. With billions of these coins the odds of finding a small production coin are small for any given coin, but the coins are out there. since there are hundreds of desirable coins from condition rarities to rare varieties, it's actually far easier to find rare coins in circulation than ever before. Coins used to be screened by millions of collectors; there was no real chance of finding a valuable coin in circulation after the mid 1950's. But in the modern age the rarities merely accumulate in circulation and are added to each year.

Take a coin like a '72-D DDR quarter. There are two of this coin known. ...and probably still many thousands in circulation. Each year another 3% of these are destroyed by fires and the like and about 15% of what's left is worn down another grade. Yet if you find one of these will be at least the third best example known and every year the odds of someone finding a better one will drop because the coins are getting used up in circulation.

Again this same applies to regular issue coins like an '83-P quarter too. If you find a nice AU then you already have a scarce coin. Is it valuable? Well, it wholesales at up to about $15 but this might not reflect its true scarcity if it's an attractive specimen. Attractive '83-P quarters are very difficult to find in any grade. In VF or F they are common enough to attract little interest but try to find a nice piece, you'll be surprised.

Even if future collectors don't demand the varieties in their sets, one has to think that coins with populations under a few hundred pieces and most of those in VG and lower condition, that VF and XF examples might command significant premiums. Some of these varieties constitute large series of coins with some being quite common. This is exactly the sort of thing that tends to attract collector interest and leads them to be added to collections. The rare pieces of these series could become highly sought after. Even the common pieces will in some cases be extremely tough in AU or unc.

These scarce and rare coins exist across all the denominations and run the gamut from virtually unique to scarce. This applies to many of the coins. Imagine what the coins would have looked like in 1960 if collectors had never removd an interesting coin from circulation. There would have been many old and rare coins in circulation just as there are today.

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Tempus fugit