Second 1990 No ‘S’ proof set found by dealer

Need evidence that there are still rare and valuable undiscovered 1990 No “S” proof sets out there?

I have it.

I received an email from professional numismatist Mark Wieclaw.

These proof sets worth $10,000-$20,000 each have a cent in them without the mintmark.

The missing “S” on the cent is what turns a $5 retail item into something worth 2,000 times that number.

This is the second reported find from Mark.

He wrote to me in September to report the find a of single set in the hands of a client.

Now one more has been found, and there is the possibilily of yet another one out there.

Here is what Mark has written:

“I have a follow-up story on the 1990 no 'S' proof set.

“Three weeks after I purchased the proof set, the lady called me to let me know that she found more coins. So I went to visit her and sure enough she had a second no 'S' 1990 proof set. I told her about the first set and offered her a nice premium for the two sets. She was ecstatic.

“Then she told me that she had always ordered three of each year. One for each of her daughters, both deceased, and one for her. So I asked her about another box that she hadn’t found. She assured me there were no more. As I was driving home, I remembered that the first time that we did business in 2012, she sold me jewelry and coins. Looking through receipts, there was a run of proof sets included.

“Assuming that the third 1990 proof set was gathered by the same Mint employee, it was probably a no 'S' variety also.

“Sadly, these were not in the news at the time and I sold it to a local Chicago dealer, along with the others. He didn’t check either, so a third set is probably sitting in someone’s collection, undiscovered.”

I am grateful to Mark for keeping me posted on his exciting discoveries

These two sets are one percent of the total likely to exist.

The estimate for the number of these No “S” proof sets that exist is 200, but more than half that number has yet to be found and reported.

So, if you happened to buy a 1990 proof set on the secondary market in 2012, you had better check it again. Your odds of a major find just improved.

If you still haven’t checked the 1990 proof sets that you bought directly from the Mint at the time of issue, here is more incentive that it might be worth your while to do so.

I hope you are lucky.

If you do find such a set, let me know. Then go celebrate.

Buzz blogger Dave Harper won the Numismatic Literary Guild Award for Best Blog for the third time in 2017 . He is editor of the weekly newspaper "Numismatic News."

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