1986 cent

What is so special about this year and mint? Production count is not that far out of line with other cents of the 80's and 90's.

 

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The biggest reason is the lack of people collecting modern coins during the 80's. Very few true UNC coins survive, and this is reflected in the values.

 

A lot of it is hype, there is four and a half billion minted for the 86 penny they red book for fifty cents, someone sends a bunch to PCGS they build a slab population and people that are not very knowlegable start buying Da Da the price goes up...

 

ND is correct, my birth year being 1986, I can hardly find a lot of 1986 coins that I would like, even others than cents, also proof singles as well.

 

I just bought an UNC roll on Ebay. Only the two end coins have spots, the other 48 are pristine.

 

A lot of the cents minted in the last several years are far scarce in unc than the cents from the '40's. They are cheap not because of large mintages but because of low demand. Since 1965 only the cents, nickels, halfs and dollars (and states issues)have been set aside in any real quantities because these are the coins that have some demand. This demand is not great and few people save significant quantities of these coins. All coins in recent years are very readily available but if the few people all saving tthe moderns neglect a coin than it will be a tough one to find later. This is the primary reason for the "high" price on the '86 roll. Additionally, these coins come bad. They are usually poorly struck and frequently tarnished or rotting. This means many collectors will have to buy a whole roll or two to find a nice coin for their comllection. Mint set coins are relatively few in number because mintage of this set is low. Few of the existing sets get cut up because there has always been a set premium for this date except for a brief period a few years ago. Mint set coins occassionally come very, very gemmy but this isn't typical. While many of these are nice choice coins, there are a lot with corrosion and poor surfaces. This simply means that mint set coins while a viable option for obtaining these coins do not come cheap. This is a $20 set and you'll need about four of them to be sure of getting a nice attractive Philly coin. This leaves the rolls which were not heavily saved and have had very high attrition since collectors tend to destroy rejected moderns by putting them in circulation and because so many of these are corroding.

In the long run the '84's may do even better since they have a far higher attrition, especially in the mint sets.

 

3.95 a roll on E-bay. that about 8 cents each, Your welcome.

 

Greysheet bid on the '86 cent roll is $21.

 

While greysheet bid is $21 I would quite surprised to see any dealer buy at near that price. The demand really isn't there.

Most of us dealers have so many rolls of modern coinage laying around wondering who is paying the prices that are reflected in the greysheet.

 

I've never had any trouble at all selling modern rolls for greysheet bid. In fact if you're patient you can usually get substantially more than greysheet. This is a thin market and the corner dealer usually won't have customers for such things so the coins will have to be shipped. There is a complicating factor with cents. Many of these rolls are very unattractive and there are no buyers for them. With all modern rolls the coins have to be nice. While the prices on these are low, they are very real. Retail prices on them tend to be far higher.

Dealers do not have rolls of dimes and quarters lying around. These are not often encountered and the market for them is thinner yet.

 

Where are you finding 1986 cent rolls for $3.95? I just checked completed auctions and they are at $20 plus per roll.

 

I found only two listed. Here's one that closes in nine days and is at $25. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3358&item=3940825137&rd=1

 

Look closer I found two within a DOLLAR.

 

I must be looking in the wrong place because when I search for 1986 cent, the cheapest roll selling right now has a starting bid of $14.99

http://search.ebay.com/1986-cent_Co...tegoryZ11116QQsosortorderZ1QQsosortpropertyZ3

 

Ya know guys this is what happenen to baseball cards, nobody talked about the players, it was all about the price QUOTE from Barry Bonds--Nobody cares about baseball, it's all about the money..

 

BUT it did not stop the coins from getting the black carbon specks on the obverse. I think that this problem started in 1982 when they started minting our pennies with a composition of 99% zinc and then coating with copper.

This from your linked auction. I had guessed this but didn't expect it to be mentioned in the description. It is true that large numbers of these coins have a multitude of problems. If the copper coating isn't perfect then ambient moisture will attack the zinc and lift the plating right off. Many get a multitude of carbon spots and even some which are still solid will be very unattractive. While such coins do have value, they can not be wholesaled as BU rolls. The '86 isn't especially bad for these problems but it is among the worst. If people realized how few nice looking coins there are of some of these dates the pricing would be far different. 1968 mint set cents are universally damaged by corrosion and carbon spots. '84-D cents are severely damaged more than 3/4 of the time. There are far fewer of these sets left in existence than most assume. Rolls exist of all the cents but often aren't a great deal better and sometimes are not very numerous. Not all the denominations even exist in rolls and mint sets are virtually the sole source.

 

Either way you look at it, what we are talking about here is money!

 

This isn't the case. All the talk about money is from those who can't understand why scarce moderns bring premiums. People are collecting these coins because they are a ton of fun. They are making collections of not only the scarce coins but the common ones also. If it were about money then there would just be investment grade coins and nothing else. These are BU rolls here. If you find the prices these are commanding to be so disconcerting then it might be wise to stay away from a greysheet with the prices of all the modern rolls. Don't even think of looking for some of the slabbed issues which are scarce.