? about Proof Sets

Over the years this has become the standard answer, but I disagree with it. For one thing I can remember when the '01 Proof dollar did not cost any more than the '00 dollar did. I can also remember when the set itself was realtively cheap. The set and the dollar both increased in price together.

I attribute this to one thing really and have said so many times. It was basically due just to circumstances. Back before '99 Proof Sets were no where near as popular as they are now. For that matter no mint product was. There was virtually no secondary market and what market there was showed very small profits for dealers. Thus dealers only regularly bought limited numbers of Proof Sets for their customers that they knew would want one. It was more common for Proof Sets to go down below issue price than it was for them to increase in price.

Then '99 came along with the issue of the SQ's. It came and went with no change in dealer's habits regarding buying Proof Sets. Then by early 2000 the popularity of the SQ's was increasing. Customers were going to their dealers looking for the '99 sets. The dealers did not have any in stock, they had sold those they purchased. Thus as the demand for the '99 sets increased so did the price. Dealers began buying them from the public - the only source there was.

So now along comes 2000, the dealers remembered the previous year and most of them ordered huge quantities of the 2000 sets. Customers came into their dealer's shops, requested the set and walked out with one. They were easy to get. Thus demand did not increase and neither did the price.

So in 2001 dealers remembered this as well, they figured '99 must have been a fluke because they made no special profits on the sets in 2000. So again they did not order many '01 sets from the mint.

Of course history repeated itself, but to a lesser degree. A few dealers bought more than normal, but not as many as they did in 2000. They did not want to get stcuk with the left over sets like they had the previous year. And as dealer supplies of the '01 sets ran out, prices began to go up. But not as much as they had on the '99 sets.

In the following years dealers just ordered the sets every year, they were not going to screw up again. So the prices for most annual Proof sets remained fairly stable. And only the '99 and '01 sets increased in price.

By 2003, 2004 talk on the forums went the way it does now - lots of questions as to why the '99 and '01 sets costs so much. The mintages were little different from other years, there was nothing special about them, so what was the reason ? Even back then I gave the same answer I am giving now. But then one day somebody said the '01 set was expensive because of the Sacky. Well it wasn't the Sacky - it was the set itself. But the dollar coin in Proof sets had always sold for more than the other coins if it was sold individually. This had the way it was every year there was a dollar. But the explanation caught on and soon it became the standard answer to the question.

People began to accept this answer because they could understand it, it seemed to make sense. Especially since they could think of no other reason to explain it. And today, the 2000 Proof Sacky cost almost as much as the whole set itself. And for no other reason than because people believe it should. It exist in virtually the same numbers and grades as any other year, there is nothing special about it whatsoever. Well, nothing special except for the set of circumstances that I described above.

As they say - stuff happens. Well, you know what I mean