Like Hobo has eluded to.....it's a crap shoot. Many times you can pick them up in the "after market" for less than the original mint issue price. It really boils down to "are you going to collect these", or "are you going to invest in these". As a collector, I buy them directly. As a "cheap skate", I pick up the ones I've missed (at bargain prices) over the years. And for the years that I missed and the prices shot up? Shame on me for not ordering directly.....
I had been ordering anywhere from 2-10 of the Proof and Uncirculated directly from the Mint until a couple of years ago when my boss clsoed his store. It's no skin off my nose. I'm not in it for the money. Chris
I would guess that some people that are better at grading then me buy them from the mint a 100 at a time and self grade them and send the one's they think are MS70/PF70 off to get grading and quickly sell the rest on eBay for about what they paid for them.
Ed, I recently purchased approx. 20 Silver Proof sets on eBay at what I feel are very attractive prices, but some I need to pay much more than the original Mint price. The 1999 US Mint Silver Proof set sold for $31.95, and today on eBay they are going for close to $300...900% higher price. If you look at what you may save on the other eight Silver Proof sets, that contain the 50 State Quarters, it would not offset the loss that you would have on the 1999 & 2001 sets. It's difficult knowing if a commemorative will be more or less on eBay in the future. If you like the issue or the set, just buy direct from the mint and enjoy being the first owner and having the set for as long as possible. Just my 2 cents which in todays dollars isn't even worth that much.
There are some Commemorative's that are easy to tell that they are going to be worth more before the mint even stops selling them like the 2006 20th Anniversary Silver eagle set that some dealers were paying $200, twice the issue price before the sets sold out to get around the limit of sets you could order and there are some coins that you just know are going to sink like the 2009 Louis Braille dollar, who got excited about that coin?
Why did I purchase the Lincoln Chronicle set last year? It has only risen in value by 100% in less than a year.
You really have to gauge what is coming out of the mint to see if it is going to be a hot commodity or not. Lately, nothing has been, the scout dollar might have been then they pc'd it and changed the image and suddenly no one was really interested.
hi - i'm new here - so please forgive me it this is not the correct venue for my query: why are the no mintage figures in the Red Book for the "government commemorative" sets? thanks much!
I'm confused. The OP commented on commemoratives, but it seems that half of the posts here are about mint sets, proof sets, quarters, silver eagles . . . Are these coins considered to be commemoratives?
Probably because most collectors don't bother keeping the sets together and they tend to be more interested in the individual coins. The mintage figure you see in the Redbook for the individual coins is actually the total of the sales of the single coins and the same coin from the sets. Sales/mintage of the sets back to 2013 can be found on the Mint website. Finding figures from before then is more difficult.
