Expert: PAPAJACK - 2/9/2009

Question
The mintage of the 1995-w, 10th anniversary set, was just over 35000.  Is there an estimate as to the number of intact sets still remaining?  Many were broken up for various reasons, but I am curious about any estimates of intact sets.

Answer
Hello Randy,                  

No one can say how many sets exist. I will bet most of them are still together in the original package. And many 1995-W eagles’ that were professionally graded are together as well but just not in the holders that the Government issued them in.

For a common collector the value is in owning the coin not the particular grade.
They would leave all the coins in a safe place as issued. If you are not a hard core collector you would often break the set up as many dealers do and take out the “Money Coin” as they call it for sale. They often get it professionally graded since if it grades 68 to 70 the profit is so high.

I can only guess but there are likely more than 25k of the 35k sill extant. There are so many other rarities to be had in coin collecting that over paying for bullion piece like the 95W would take a while to be considered rare enough to destroy a set over.

Also the other coins in the set that it came with are common and you would get more as a set than selling the others individually. They may only get the precious metal value at this time in the marketplace.

I hope this is food for thought; there is no true answer to the question you posed.

Good Luck,

PapaJack