You see all these rolls of proof coins on ebay and other sites, where are they getting them? Is the US mint sellng them? I have searched there site and not found any means to buy them.
Are you talking about rolls of proof quarters, dimes, etc? If so, these simply come from proof sets that someone broke apart and then had enough to make rolls. I avoid these like the plague.
They are uncirculated (Appear to be proff like condition.) and no considered proofs and some our the silver dollars. Also I have seen rolls of pennies like that too.
This may not always be the case, but more than likely what happened was a dealer sent many proof sets to PCGS, NGC, ICG etc. I'm guessing that any of them that did not grade an proof 69 or higher were returned, and they are selling the rejects.
Proof like moderns tend to be scarce to rare. There is an active wholesale market in proof rolls. These are split up by numerous companies and individuals who assemble rolls and sell into this market. I've actually seen bag sets of a few dates of proof coins for sale. These rolls aren't the typical quality that you find in sets. Buyers have no interest in the culls and toned coins so these tend to be removed and spent. Most assemblers of the rolls probably save out one or two from each roll that are extremely high quality as well. Buyers of the rolls are mainly assembling date and denomination sets for retail sale. Many millions of proof sets have been destroyed and there are even companies using automated equiment and special tools to assemble the rolls. There are stories of dealers who fill dumpsters every week with the packaging from the sets being destroyed.
When there is a large number of Proof Sets broken up for rolls, the prices can typically increase also. For folks like me and others who collect set for a full collection, it improves our values.
Ok then I have a question. If proof sets are split up just like unc. sets and some of the coins are worth more then the sets themself but yet coins/sets prices are determined by how scare they are how do we know how many sets are still intact to come up with a true value? I guess to answer my own question would be how available they are. It sure seems like there would be not to many left.
the problem is simple. price is determined by supply / demand. not necessarily by scarcity. you never know how many sets are still intact. nobody can know. what matters is supply / demand. when there is sufficient supply for a demand at given price then it wont go up. no reason for it. example: there were hundreds of thousands of 1909-S VDB cents made. Their price is in hundreds and thousands. compare that to some tokens. You can have an token older than the cent. There was less then a thousand made. However, it is priced well below the 1909-S VDB cent. Why? Way less people intend to add the token to the collection compared to the cent. Way less people think they NEED that coin. So that's why scarcity is not the only factor influencing the price. Modern BU rolls of quarters from 80's, early 90's were saved in much lower number than the state quarter rolls. But the price is lower. WHY? There are millions of people collecting state quarters. Way less people collect Washington quarters from 80's. However, supply and demand, determine price. Not scarcity. There is no way to measure scarcity. If there was, prices of (some) moderns would be WAY UP.
Sometimes its cheaper to buy a proof set and crack out the coin you need for you collection, rather than buy the coin as a single on its own, like the 1991s cent. The proof set sells for around 20-25 dollars which is what the cent sells for as a single.
There is a steady flow of these sets onto the market and a steady drawdown by those wanting either the intact set or the pieces. So long as these rates are in equilibrium the price will remain the same. What happens time after time is that as a set gets older the rate they come available begins to exceed the drawdown and then the demand for the individual coins will come to exceed the intact set price as the set price drops. When this occurs many of the sets in dealer inventory will be busted up and new sets flowing onto the market will also be busted up. I've always suspected that we are approaching a day of reckoning where increasing demand will be met by decreasing supply. This will be very pronounced in many of the moderns but especially in the mint sets. Mint set production was lower and the attrition on these is higher. Skimmpy demand has caused absurdly low prices which results in extreme destruction and many of the coins ending up in circulation. When people finally start looking for those quarters from the '80's and '90's they just might find the mint sets are gone too. Large percentages of many of the proof sets have been destroyed as well and demand for these may be brisk at some point. Working against the proofs is not only the higher mintages but also the high survival rates of the coins from these sets.
Many coin dealers break out sets of proofs and sell them separately at coin shows. If you go to enough coin shows you will see dealers with numerous books of proof coins being sold individually. They are eagerly purchased by individuals that want to fill a Dansco or Whitman Album where there are slots for such coins. However, not all sell so the dealer will take the ones that don't sell and put them in a plastic roll and sell as a roll of proof coins. Same with Uncirc sets from the Mint. You have to remember that most products everywhere cost more if you buy them a little at a time rather than the entire item. For instance if you sell your car to a junk yard you'll get about $40 to 50 for it. It you go back to that same junk yard and buy back your car piece at a time you will pay about $10,000 for it. If you wanted to build a TV set. All the parts would probably cost you thousands and you could have bought a better one at Walmart for a few hundred. All same with coins.
The parts of a '95 mint set total only about $3 but the set wholesales at more than $15. It's typical for sets to have a premium for years after issue but then the coins go up or the set comes down and then they get busted up. They don't all fit this pattern though.
I have seen people claiming they have rolls of the American Eagles (Silver Dollars) and I was given one and bought one. They don't look like the ones the mint sells. Wonder where they are coming from?
the ones the mint sells directly to collectors are proof coins and the ones that come in rolls are regular uncirculated bullion coins, which are available only through the mint's select few distributors.
So the average joe has no chance for buying direct like that from the mint? Why do they not just sell those coins?
I have some experience with rolls of proofs. A couple of months back I needed three 2006 Kennedy proofs as I buy three of everything and I could have bought them one-by-one but instead bought a roll of 20 proofs for approx. 2.00 dollars per coin after shipping. Individually they would have cost from 8 to 10 dollars each after shipping costs. I got to pick through all 20 and select the ones I wanted and I have 17 that I can eventually sell that will more than make up for what I paid for the 3 proofs I needed. The quality of all 20 was excellent and they came nicely wrapped without any scratches. I like buying coins in bulk with an eye toward future sales of the extra coins. It helps support my coin addiction and keeps me building my collection on somebody else's dime. I guess what I'm saying is that rolls of proofs are a good way to get what you need while purchasing extra coins that will more than likely go up in value and can be sold at a profit.
That is what I am talking about the ones with the green caps. Are those also only available to the select few?
