A recent discussion on the 1999-present silver proof sets set me to wondering how many proof sets have been cracked:hammer: open? For example, the 1999 silver proof set had a mintage of 804,565. How many of those are still intact? I know that I have had to crack open (or get from people who had cracked open) over 50 sets just to get the proof coins for my Dansco Kennedy Half Dollars including proof-only issues album The idiot TV coin shopping shows push state quarter and dollar sets (among others) that include (cracked out) proof coins, although I'm guessing that those couldn't account for more than tens of thousands of sets (but I could be wrong). So, are there any estimates as to the survival rates?
My guess would be a little over 300,000 of them have been My guess would be a little over 300,000 (maybe 400,000) of them have been broken up, just a guess but it does not matter there will always be some. Think about it this way - I have broken up at least 7000 to 10,000 proof and mint sets. There have been hundreds of thousands since 1950 esp. 1959 through 1964 proof sets broken up and there is still pleanty, at every shop at every show. If you ever want to look for what is rare look for what you don't see out there.
I'd take a WAG and say that probably half or more of them remain intact. I do have a 1979 type II proof set, with all the coins being type II, that I kept in the original holder. The coins are all of superior quality, and I could probably take a nice profit breaking up the set, but I like the idea of the original holder. Besides, that arrow only points in one direction. Once the set is broken up, it doesn't get back together.
For many years I would break up Mint and Proof sets to update my sets. Ended up with dups on cents and nickels, but everything else went into sets. I did that for maybe 25 years.
Bring in the bean counters! You could actually get a good guesstimate by adding X to Y and multiplying by Z! But that would be the only way. :bow:
