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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;cladking, post: 2905586, member: 68&quot;]The mint sure didn&#039;t love us in 1982.</p><p><br /></p><p>It was an unusual time for hobby/ mint relations.&nbsp; The mint knew nobody cared about circulation coins and nobody would complain about the abysmal quality of the coins being produced.&nbsp; They just went year after year cranking out the same old designs with different dates that nobody cared about.&nbsp; The only mint products were proof and mint sets but people apparently were buying them only because they were the only things you could buy.&nbsp; Congress had them producing gold medals and it was the year of the return of commems (Washington half), but even with the Washington coin quality was poor.</p><p><br /></p><p>People and collectors paid little heed to the mint or coins made for circulation.&nbsp; Collecting Gems of modern coins was in its infancy with most of the attention having been focused on Ikes the longest, Kennedys for only a couple years and the attention on nickels was new.&nbsp; The mint was likely aware of this new found interest but took no steps to improve quality until 1984 and actually suspended mint set production on Reagan&#039;s edict according to the mint.&nbsp; This suspension was critical because coins simply weren&#039;t being set aside in those days and most of the Gems were coming from mint sets.&nbsp; Many people didn&#039;t even notice that mint sets were discontinued and quality took a nose dive in &#039;82.&nbsp; I couldn&#039;t find a nice &#039;82-P quarter until the end of September even after extensive sampling all over the midwest.&nbsp; And then I found it virtually in my own front yard and literally at my own bank.&nbsp; Obtaining a bag of them was extremely difficult because there was no mechanism for buying a bag.&nbsp; The vault manager told me he called several other vault managers in the Chicago area and they had never heard of anyone requesting a bag of anything other than one cent coins! </p><p><br /></p><p>In retrospect the cessation of mint sets seems nearly a calculated move.&nbsp; These coins are really quite scarce in pristine condition but the fact isn&#039;t widely known so the demand is very low.&nbsp; All the &#039;82 and &#039;83 issues are fairly scarce and this especially applies to well struck examples in pristine condition.</p><p><br /></p><p>The mint eventually got what it wanted; vast profits on the coins made for circulation and its catalog.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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