Just picked up this beauty today for a price I couldn't resist! Newbie question - but what makes a Special Mint Set special? Also based on the pictures attached (only took the fronts for now) - are there any of them you might suggest getting graded? Any visible scratches are legit on the case not on the coins. My personal favorites are the dime and nickel. What are your thoughts?
I would just leave them in the government packaging. If you do have it graded, grade the entire set as is snd not just a coin or two.
That is basically a proof set. I’d keep the ‘65-‘67 sets intact. If you want to sell off those coins individually, you might have a market, in particular in proof collectors if graded and attributed. So if that’s what you want to do, I checked “All.”
Unless any of these are flat out "proof-like" (and imo none are quite that good) it will likely cost you more to have them graded then they're worth. Honestly if it were me I'd just leave them in the original packaging. They're not worth a lot now, but less and less of these have the OGP intact, and one day there will be a value to that.
So as not to be misconstrued, I agree with this 100%. That's just my opinion, and others are at liberty to have their opinions. But my point in grading and attributing these is, these aren't regular, business-strike coins of those years, but, as noted in the sets, "special" coins. And while the minting process, which differentiates proofs, isn't strictly-speaking a "proof" minting process, proofs not having been minted in those years, they're as different from business-issue and as akin to proof-issue as one is going to get in those years, making them, I'd think, particularly collectable to proof collectors. Call them a hybrid? IDK. But I'd think I'm wanting these special mint set coins, in those years, were I a proof collector. And there's my only real point, here.
Please note that no proof or mint sets were issued in 1965, 1966 or 1967. Only Special Mint Sets were issued by the mint. Due to clad coinage starting in 1965 and in 1964 silver coins were last struck is what brought about the change in SMS. That created a nationwide coin shortage. Coin collectors were blamed for the shortage but that never happened. Every family in the US was saving silver coins. The San Francisco mint started to produce coins for the SMS in 1965. The quality was better than a mint set but not as good as a proof set. They are very distinctive and almost satin looking or semi brilliant. The coins were packaged in a sealed plastic holder similar to the packaging on proof sets. All 3 years of the SMS the coins were only struck once and on unpolished planchets were proof coins are struck twice on polished planchets. Proof coins are not allowed to make contact with other coins but the SMS coins were allowed to make contact. The dies were over polished which resulted in a proof like appearance. That have the dies a brilliant finish. This resulted in a very minor mint errors as over polishing occurred and design details were lost. Almost all 1967 SMS coins have a brilliant and a proof like finish. The mintages are as follows: 1965-2,360,000 1966-2,261,583 1967-1,863,344 All were issued at a mint price of $4.00 and contained a face value of $.91. Today, almost 60 years later they trade in the are of $10-$15 each. The 1967 SMS may bring a couple of dollars more in different market areas.
I'll say it, again. Were I a proof collector, I'd want these in my set. Were I not a proof collector, meh?
They might technically not be proof sets, but they're as close as you could get for those years, so I still included the SMS years in my proof set collection. It would feel like something was missing if I didn't lol. Fun fact: the 1966 special mint set is the first year the Mint started selling coins in hard acrylic packaging, that became the standard from that point forward.
