Are there 500 1971 Mint Sets Available?

there are only 499 sets now as i fell for one and bought for 11 bucks

 

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Somehow or other they filled their order already but are looking for more. It looks like bid is headed higher on mint sets so this might help shake a few loose.

But this is where I expect problems to arise, every increase in price shakes fewer loose. If demand is ratcheting higher every day as it appears to be then how long until the price gets high enough to suppress that demand? I would suggest the actual demand would be almost unaffected even at much higher levels because price is still largely based not on scarcity or mintage but on face value. As is someone wants a 1974 half dollar of both mints they buy a mint set and remove the half dollars. The other coins may pass straight into circulation. But finding these sets gets increasingly problematical so some end up paying ask or even retail but this still makes the half dollars only $5.50 each after deducting the face value of the other coins. A few will order the coins retail and save a dollar or two but this increases the demand for mint sets because 1974 half dollars almost all originate in mint sets. If you find a roll it will most probably be from a mint set.

I think the days of being able to obtain nice attractive specimens of moderns for a dollar or two are rapidly drawing to a close because the mint sets are in insufficient supply to get the singles that are demanded by modern coin collectors. This demand in aggregate is a mere 10 or 20 coins (each date and MM) per day! Demand for something like 1974 half dollars is only 10 or 20 per day but the market, I believe, is not going to keep up. I believe even rapidly increasing mint set prices will have little effect on demand. Sure, there are tired longs who might sell into it but I've never heard of anyone who keeps massive numbers of these. Buyers destroy them or sell them to the general public. They don't store them so most of the sets are simply gone.

This IS THE PROBLEM! Once the sets are gone or bid up to much higher prices there are no more 1974 half dollars or any other modern BU coin originating in sets. There are no bags of '87-D half dollars or warehouses that keep such things. Nobody needs this kind of stock when they can just buy '87 mint sets, or '74, or the tougher dates. There are very few nice collections because people have been told moderns are uncollectible overpriced junk continually since 1964. Coins and sets sold to the general public in a consumer society are very often destroyed or decayed. People don't put a half dollar set from HSN in their safety deposit box, it goes into the basement where it floods or until it's taken to a dealer who throws it in the cash register. No collections, no rolls, no singles, no hoards just a demand ratcheting higher from 10 or 20 per day.

'71 sets are much more complex because so many were too poorly made to even sell as chBU and the vast majority are already destroyed and what's left is is usually degraded by tarnish. If you want 100 nice '71-P half dollars to sell you have to buy 150 sets and clean them.

This remains interesting to watch. It's been a few years since mint set prices ratcheted higher but those sets that have been brought to market during this time were nicer than what's left AND most have been destroyed so can never flow back unto the market. Sets like the '71 are probably down to less than 25% surviving. I'm betting that prices will head much higher long before the last one has been cut up and put in circulation, graded, sold to the general public, or put into new collections.

It may well be at hand as evidenced by higher bids.

 

Doubt it but I have one and they are not getting it!!