This is in an old "mint set" from my Grandfather's collection. It also had this sweet 1982 SDC cent! This set is of nicer quality than I've ever seen the US Mint produce!
Always had a headache sorting all the different varieties of 1982 cents. Eventually gave up and bought a set with them already identified lol... Nice. Only 30 years later it's already hard to find these in this condition outside of mint sets. The detail in Washington's hair seems a little flat (it almost always does, any waviness at all is amazing sometimes) but the eagle on the reverse is very nice looking. Great feather detail.
It's a nice one! It's in the top 3% of what I've seen. I'd grade it very ChBU or a nice MS-63+. The services would put it higher because it's such a tough date.
I've found most of the best made coins from '82 and '83 come from the privately made sets rather than any other source. Nice '82-P quarters are unusual from this specific source but it is one of the better ones for the Philly nickels.
Most of the decent 82 nickels I've found don't have this many steps. What are your feelings on the 82 nickels and their steps?
This entire set is quite exceptional, I kind of hate to sell it. I couldn't believe my eyes when I inspected it. I'm sure I'm the only other person to see it since my Grandfather got it. I really think these were carefully handpicked prior to packaging.....there's no other way to explain it since most 1982 coins are pretty aweful.
At first I thought this may be a souvenir set sold at the mint gift shop. They did this in 1982 and 1983 and those sets are expensive and sell like hot cakes on the internet auction sites. However those sets came in blue envelopes with a large brass medallion for the mint they came from included in the cello. Yours has a plastic chip. Regardless, these also get good money when sold since mint set collectors want to fill in those two missing years that the mint did not offer "mint sets" for sale as they did other years. I had a similar pair of 82 and 83 sets and got over $100.00 for the 82 and close to that for the 83.
I paid about $150 (total for both) for my 82 and 83 mint souvenir sets a while back. I've seen them go for much much more. I was pleased with the condition the coins came in. The 3rd party assembled uncirculated sets can fetch nice premiums as well.
