SOMETIMES, IT’S JUST OBVIOUS
By Dean Cugloitta, Jr.
KNC LM-82
We see the answer, the correct route, the clear path, yet we_________. Fill in the blank.
Once again, I quote an old friend
“A man with a hobby gets to live two lives,”
– Russell Barr
What are you currently collecting? Are you still stacking silver amid the rising markets? Is it that hole in a Dansco album that keeps you looking? The hobby of coin collecting has always been different than the business of buying and selling coins.
We buy what we like. Yet we also buy with the thought, “I can sell this for way more.” As I evaluate collections for purchase, I often find joy in what the collector enjoyed. Sometimes even a hoard of face value coins is fun to go through.
I’ll get to the point. A few months ago, we looked at a collection of modern mint sets (i.e. proof, mint, premier, and lots of mint stuff in boxes). What I noticed was this collection did not have the usual group of Washington quarters or Lincoln cents. Almost every coin had a different obverse or reverse. These are all one-year coin designs. A seasoned collector would reference them as one year type coins.
The 1964 Kennedy Half Dollar is a one-year type coin. Thats it! One year of it being 90% silver. The next five years it was 40% silver, then Copper-Nickel.
So, what I’m getting at is are we overlooking the most collectible coin in modern history, struck at such a low mintage that we are letting them slip away daily: The small modern U.S. $1 coin:
- 1979 to 1999 Anthony
- 2000 to 2008 Sacagawea
- 2007 to date Presidential
- 2009 to date Native American
- 2018 to date American Innovation
Like most coins, the mintage may start high in the first few years. If the coin program strikes interest in collectors, or other economical events take place, you could see very high mintages or even really low mintages. We are not talking 54,000 low, or even 100,000 coins; it’s 2000 – present where the population is 307 million people. We need money, spend money, destroy money, lose money, so there will always be billions of coins minted a year. coinnews.net tells us this, “3.3 billion coins have been struck 2024 ytd.”
These small dollars have mintages that have tapered off over the years. I’m not going to list the mintages in this article due to many factors. I encourage you to research these mintages. Is 3.3 million $1 coins a high mintage? How about 2012 with only 1.4 million, or perhaps 2020-S George Bush only 11,251 coins struck? Do your research but don’t stop just because you don’t see them circulating. Better yet don’t hesitate to buy the BU roll because they are new modern mint junk coins.
Have you been to the east coast or a city with major transit system? If you are not using a card or apple pay, your change will be in $1 coins. Years ago, in an article I shared that I received 17 $1 coins in change. The shuttle from the MGM to Paris was $3. The machine accepted my $20 note.
They get used. They get circulated and damaged too. The low mintages stretch across the small modern $1 coins. Sacagawea Native American Dollars average 2.2 million struck per year, then 1.1 million to only 800,000 and 900,000 in 2022.
Most dealers pass on carrying the extra weight or modern coins. I get it, so do I. Coins get heavy! A dealer I met years ago mentioned he had over a million small one-dollar coins and over $1 million in Washington statehood quarters. Does he know something we don’t? Who knows, remember we buy what we like.
Do your research. I hope you discover the collectibility of modern $1 coins. Well struck examples are at nearly every bank. Who knew you could obtain brilliant uncirculated, low mintage, one-year type coins, at face value.
As always, keep collecting.