I was just wondering if any one would like to guess what percentage of proof sets are cracked open yearly for type sets or grading. I have no idea but I would think that it has increased with all the slabed proof coins these days
Most of the coins from most of the busted sets go into Danscos and collections raw. About 5% are culls and go into circulation. I'd guess that the earlier dates from '68 to '72 it tends to be around 40 to 45% destroyed intentionally or otherwise. More recent dates vary from 10% to 40%. I don't have a good feel for the proof sets and this is based largely on what is left on the market.
1960-1964 Proofs I'm sure alot of people broke up silver sets in 1979-80 for melt. l busted out least 40 sets in Jan/Feb 1980, which was sold as bullion most likely melted.
I’d guess a lot are broken up, maybe 50%. The only way to get proofs for some modern US coin’s is proof sets. When I started collecting again I cleaned house. My 80’s – 90’s proof sets where the first to go. I broke up 10 or so sets. I took the dimes and quarters needed for my sets and sold the rest.
My estimates could be pretty low. In the old days you could go to a medium size show and fill a truck with all the proof sets that were there and now you'd be lucky to find 200 sets. A lot of these sets go to "big buyers" and a large percentage of these will be busted up. The others will be retailed. If you look at what comes into coin shops you'll see most of the sets coming in are from people who bought them from the government or shortly after issue on the secondary market. This would imply that pretty few are retailed so it should be largely a function of the average age of the purchasers when each set was issued. For instance many buyers in the early '70's were mid 30's to mid 50's. Thirty years later most of the older buyers have already had their estates sold and the younger ones are at an age that many would have retired and probably sold. This might mean that higher percentages than I suggested are gone. You can tell when a lot of sets are being busted up because you'll hear of people finding some of the coins in circulation right aster the value of the coins in the set has exceeded the price of the set. I've found many of these proofs myself including a worn out '68-S quarter back in 1997. You can also look and see what's available in the shops though and you won't see a dramatic difference in the numbers of the older and more recent sets. Lower mintages for recent years alone won't explain this discrepancy. Mint sets seem a little more tranparent to me because I've watched them more closely and much longer.
I think that in this day and age of tpg's esp the set grading the ngc is doing, more and more sets will find themselves under "the hammer"
I've cracked my share of proof sets, so I would esimate that less than half of the 1955-1972 proof sets are still intact. Charlie
