Will the Collecting of ‘Sealed’ Coins Take Off?

Baseball and other sports cards have been marketed in various ways.  Distribution techniques included placing the cards alongside a stick of bubble gum in a packet. What made this method of collecting cards so exciting was being unable to see what cards were in the packet until the packet was opened. You might receive common cards, but the possibility of receiving a high-demand or rare card was always possible. For that reason, many packets were never opened and are, to this day, traded among collectors unsealed.

A new program dubbed WitterBrick brings the same intrigue to coin collecting by offering sealed mystery boxes of third-party certified vintage and modern U.S. coins. We’ll see if this gets off the ground, but as one person recently posted to Forums.collectors.com, “This isn’t a needed or necessary innovation, but I do think it’s much better for the average collector/gambler than the other options.”

Taking the negative viewpoint, I can ask, are we no better than baseball card traders of the 1970s? What about the original sealed proof sets of 1950 to 1955 that were traded unopened? (Unfortunately, some have been opened and re-sealed after the coins are switched.) I once saw an original boxed vintage Lionel train engine being sold unopened but accompanied by an X-ray of what was in the box!

Taking the optimistic viewpoint, WitterBrick could encourage new collectors. If some of these packages are priced reasonably low, the general public may take an interest in them. Who knows, this might be the next coin-related product being sold in retail stores.