AVERAGE_JOE's Bio
Since childhood I’ve been fascinated with coinage, and have always wanted to assemble a respectable coin collection. Now that I'm retired, I decided to make that unfulfilled boyhood dream finally come true.
Like many coin collectors, I started my numismatic journey with an interest in Morgan Silver Dollars. But after I bought a few nice Morgans, I realized I can’t afford to buy the Morgans I really want to own...the rarest ones.
So I went searching for a series of coins that Average Joes could collect, where all but the rarest of specimens were still affordable. I considered many options, but the series that stood out to me was the 1950-64 American Post-War Proofs.
The U.S. Mint makes Proof coins for collectors one-at-a-time, with gloved hands, and they're only made to order. Before World War II, only rich people bought Proof coins. But after the war, interest in Numismatics literally exploded.
When the U.S. Mint finally resumed Proof coinage production in 1950, only 51,386 Proof Sets were sold. That's it! And to complicate things, the U.S. Mint's quality-control was terrible. The packaging they shipped Proof coins in ended up damaging most of the coins. So very few high-grade specimens from the early years of the 1950-64 Post-War Proof series have survived.
The popularity of Post-War Proofs is growing fast, and so are the prices for the finest high-grade examples. In slightly-lower grades, however, even Average Joes can afford to own fine specimens.
Happy collecting!
— Populations updated October 2022 —