Should I always keep the annual sets from the US Mint in their original boxes? Do that help the set keep its worth? Thanks.
90% of the stuff from the mint does not hold its value anyway so it wont hurt the value to much to open them, especially the new satin mint sets since people can tell it came from a mint set vs the older sets that if you opened them they were the same exact coins that you can get at the bank.
Many Dealers will not consider buying a set , unless you have the original box . It's a nice presentation to have the original Mint packaging , even if your selling the set at a local garage sale , etc.
I just unloaded ALOT of the mint-sets that I've collected through the years and let me say that I might have made a buck or two on a couple of them, but MOST of them went down like a brick. One set went from $30 to about $9....etc. Unless you get them for a bargan, I wouldn't buy a bunch. Speedy
Most of the modern mint sets are worth much apart than they are together. It's difficult to understand why this is but the main reason is that most collectors are very hesitant to cut up their sets. they want to keep their sets intact and they want to have the singles in their collections so they buy the individual coins even though individual coins often cost more than the entire set. This varies from date to date and some mint sets do have huge premiums for being intact with the original packaging. There's a tendency for these premiums to evaporate over the years as more and more sets are destroyed anyway for parts and demand for the singles to be met. It's risky to predict if this pattern will persist into the future. There are many millions of new collectors and they've already staved off this pattern for twelve years. What most non modern collectors don't realize is that mint sets are the primary source of most singles since 1965. Mint sets are almost the sole source of high quality singles. People quit saving coins in 1965 so you can't just go out and find a roll of '69 quarters because they aren't out there. It doesn't matter too much anyway since if you could find a roll of these they'd be attrocious. They have weak strikes from mushy dies and were banged up before they got out of the mint. People also don't realize that most of the mint sets are gone now. The market has been paying dealers to cut these sets up so when they come on the market most are cut up within just a couple years. Later years have much lower mintages but many of these get cut up as soon as they're sold to update sets and the like. Many of the coins in the mint sets are damaged by corrosion now. I don't know what future collectors will do for nice '68-D cents since they're all gone now. Not many people care about moderns and just don't know what's going on. Pre-'95 sets are mostly safe to cut thiough you will forfeit any premium that might someday develope for them. It's very doubtful that the premium for a set will never exceed the premium for nice coins so plan accordingly. With the post-'94 sets there can be a large premium. Except for the '00 and '05 you shouldn't cut these unless the cost of the singles is too high.
