Let me say this another way. The largest group of '73 mint sets I was ever able to check at one time was at a dealer in Indianapolis who had...
Some coins aren't so bad, like the '73 Ike. 25% are damaged but 95% of the damaged ones can be saved. Other coins are awful. The '68 dime is...
Wow! It must be the crime rate?
There are several ways to do it and I'm still learning more. The tried and true way is 91% isopropyl alcohol. Just let it soak a couple days....
"Mint sets" are a tiny little backwoods of the modern coin markets even though virtually every single variety and Gem of circulating moderns...
Beautiful strike! The coin is a keeper but the marking precludes much of a premium at this time. This one too needs to be soaked.
A lot of the 1973 mint sets that are seen are picked over. But it's not nearly as large a percentage that have been checked as some might...
I'd call it MS-63+. It is in about the 60th percentile of what was made. It has mint set hazing which will easily come off in alcohol or...
There are undergraded coins out there. Some graders grade everything pretty high and a nice example could have been graded. Finding them might...
I believe this coin is overgraded. I'd call it a nice gemmy MS-64. Almost 3% of '73 Ikes are nicer than this. It looks like it even has a...
You can still cherry pick slabbed 1973 coins in MS-65 but it will probably cost 20 or $30 if you find one.
Obviously your implication that demand sets prices in collectibles is exactly correct. But anyone who thinks you can get an MS-66 1973 P or D...
Correct.
If you had a couple thousand nice choice original sets still in sealed mint packages there's a very good chance you would not have a top notch P or D.
This strongly suggests that most of the high grade coins come from mint sets. There is a weak correlation between the incidence of nice mint set...
The incidence of Gems I've seen in mint sets closely parallels the population reports of the grading companies. Dates with twice as many Gems in...
I've cherry picked thousands of these since 1973 long before anyone else was and it's one date I've never found a really nice example. Even...
And most people think $10,000 a pound for equally scarce moderns is "crazy". But what's a few million if you've got it and want an 1822 half eagle?
Yes. Very common and the most common era is around 1972 to 1977. Before 1980 most of the coins were loaded by hand. It's much less of a...
This is actually quite common.
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