How do mint and proof sets usually grade?

I've been shopping Ikes lately and the high grade Ike MS coins go for a lot more than the proofs. I have a number of Bicentential Ikes and it suprises me that this date would be considered problematic. Could Jimmy Carter even screw up the Bi-Centenial?

Ruben

 

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I would expext most of your modern proof coins would grade "Gem Brilliant Proof", unless they have common factory defects.
Your modern Mint Set coins, would likely grade "Gem Brilliant Uncirculated".

The 11 point grading system, for uncirculated coins, is a marketing scam, which neither you, nor I, were ever meant to understand.

 

The Ben Franklin I coins received from 2006 are almost all MS-69 MS-70 and the Proofs are 69 or 70. The mint did a real nice job with them

 

Perhaps he could have but these were made, issued, and released before he was president.

The mint set Ikes are some of the most remarkable coins in the mint sets. Not because of their quality so much as the difficulty of finding the really nice coins. There are nice well made examples of every date and for some dates they are nearly common but the problem was that all these coins got banged up before being packaged. If you like nice clean coins you're actually better off looking in rolls because there are a few in them. The problem is that like most of the cu/ ni clads the roll coins will be poor strikes from heavily worn dies. When you find a gem it will lack a lot of detail.

So the situation is that all of the Ikes verge on rare in high grade. Where Morgans can have pops in the tens of thousands in high grade, some of the Ikes are limited to a few dozen. Generally the pops reflect the availability of gems in mint sets but there are some exceptions. The '74-P is exceedingly elusive in the mint set in gem because most specimens have poor surfaces. Among the nice ones there is excessive marking and a little problem with poor strikes.

The '73 and '73-D both come extremely nice but both are plagued by scratches and dings. The Philly also has a lot of retained planchet marking. The '74-D is fairly easy in choice and not overly tough in gem. The '76-D appears as a gem but is pretty tough even in near gem. The '77-D comes exceedingly nice but you'll probably need to settle for a gem or choice gem. Top grade specimens are scarce despite lots of near misses. The '78 and '78-D also both come nice but the '78 takes a little more effort.

About 1% of mint set Ikes are near-gem or nicer.

Of course, the '71 and '72 issues aren't available in the sets. This is one of the important characteristics of all the modern sets; they can't be assembled from mint sets alone. You have to crack a few rolls. This makes the variety sets an incredible challenge since some of the rolls were never set aside so can't be found today.

 

What is a POP?

Ruben

 

2 months ago I got about 150 Ikes all blues and browns (40%)silvers I have not had the time to really grade them buy just looking I know I have some winners IMO. My cost was average of 4.50 each. They can only go up

In the batch of Ikes were 1973 proofs and the 1974 proof Ike about 15 each

 

The grading services publish data on the coins they grade.

"POP" is short for population and is the number of coins they've graded to date.

 

Good catch -- It's a Maryland, not a Delaware quarter. I wasn't thinking when I wrote it.

You're correct; I have no experience with proof coins and have nothing to compare against. The reason I think suspect that they're candidates for MS-70 is that 1. my understanding of a grade of 70 means flawless and 2. I can't find anything wrong with them. I examined them both by eye and a 9X loupe in several different lighting conditions at different times of the day. Try as I might, I can't find a hairline, ripple or imperfection of any sort. The fields are perfectly mirrored and the devices are evenly frosted. I can't find a haze of any sort.

 

grading

i am happy with any coin or set graded ms-65 or proof 65. for my own eyes. it is perfect. period.

 

I just lost a set of 5 silver MS 67 IKEs that was considering. In fact, that was what I was fishing for in this post, a gadge on what would be a reasonable price. They went for $180.00 bucks.

http://coins.ha.com/common/view_item.php?Sale_No=67074&Lot_No=24956


Ruben

 

very nicely put and points well taken, but this is my thimbleful of knowledge about the coins of grades 67 and above.

At this juncture we are past the point of distracting marks, most coins of this caliber should be virtually flawless. My understanding is that at this high grade much more depends on the depth of strike and the details of the coin due to strike. You need to know the most difficult places of the coin to find with a full strike and look there. There you will see the only difference between a PF-68 and a PF-70 coin.

Hope that helps, and even more so, I hope it's accurate... LOL because it's just the way I understand it to be. But that doesn't necessarily make it true.