Mint and Proof Sets

Summary:

Question about collecting mint and proof sets.

Mint and Proof Sets

Coinhunter 25 Mar 2010 03:00

I've started to develop an interest in world mint and proof sets. However, web searches have failed to turn up any information on the care and feeding of the sets, much less any organizations devoted to this aspect of the hobby. Can anyone here point me in the right direction.

Re: Mint and Proof Sets

Ken Kash 25 Mar 2010 08:51

Great question, one of the primary reasons why you find so little in the way of care is because modern mint or proof sets are issued in protective cases already. For older mint sets (from 40s & 50s and even some 60s), packaging was not done with coin preservation and tended to harm the coins over time but if you are focusing on modern sets this should not pose a problem.

The problem I always had was how to store them and present them as each country uses different sized presentation holders. Now that the U.S. Mint Sets have grown in size for the last three years I'm guessing a storage box has been made to accommodate them and this may be the answer to storage. I have the old U.S. mint set storage boxes, they only accommodated U.S. & Canada sets while other world sets were either too wide or too high to fit. If anyone knows of a storage box please post the link as I'd be interested also.

Other than places to buy I not know of any online resources for this type of collecting. In theory, if you are just getting one set from each country then it fits into this site and we could add some info (as we learn about it) to help future collectors.

Re: Mint and Proof Sets

Coinhunter 31 Mar 2010 02:24

I am thinking in terms of type collecting and will share as I learn. I was looking at some art portfolios. They come in different sizes. They look like they would hold the cardboard mint sets but plastic holders would be a little too thick. The polypropylene pages are sold as archival quality and would not have direct contact with the coins.

However, my preference is to keep them in boxes where I can protect them from our high humidity. I can find suitable boxes that will hold them laying down in a stack. But I have not found any that will hold them standing up.

Re: Mint and Proof Sets

Ken Kash 31 Mar 2010 09:10

Interesting, I did check out the U.S. Mint website and they do have a box with index cards but I do not know the dimensions as they do not list them. I'll e-mail them this weekend and see if they can supply it.