Should the US Mint have a lottery for established customers?
1Bufffan
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US Mint has done its own damage to itself with this last Issue, people hiring people to stand in line, multiple orders by others, the overloaded phone orders, ETC. Why wouldn't the mint consider to have a Lottery from its established customer list with a special mint produced product that would Make you feel like someone special if you would be lucky enough to get picked, I would like to see this done instead of what just happened. They could create a annual item that would have a very limited production and would be of value not just a bronze token. Then maybe people would not feel the way they do about the Mint at this time, they might feel that they would have as much of a chance as anyone else, and if they do not like the "prize" they could pass on it and it would go to the next person. Just a thought
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There will alwasy be bots, there will always be people hiring actors, friends, family members and office associates to bid for these thing. Only thing i ask for is that it is a race to put the item in the bag rather than a race to do the checkout. After putting the item in the bag you should have 20min to complete your order. I would say 30secs-1min if their servers wouldnt crash but since it blew up for 25 mins last time that isnt enough time to make sure you can get it through. They need to get a server that can handle 150k people per hour too. I would rather know in the first 5 seconds if i was quick enough to get it in the cart or not. Instead of 25 mins of getting the middle finger (oops something happened) only to be told "thanks for wasting you time at the US mint" and not get one. How about this. Put your cart system on the "oop's something happend" server . That thing kept up the whole time....lol
Australia uses a lottery
They need to do something except what ever they do there will be some who gets left out or the coin ends up a Dud!
This time I got lucky and I can say I kept my coin but I also have a job. Some here need to flip it’s their lively hood. It just leave a bad taste that something I buy turns out to be worth 15 to 20 times what I paid and many here were not so lucky. A bad taste in my mouth, I can’t even spit it out.
Then you can start a thread about how the lottery is unfair because you lost.
First come. First serve. There is nothing inherently unfair about that.
They should just mint 10 million of everything so it's all worthless, then no one would care.
To be fair to the U.S. Mint, if you put your name in the lottery, your purchase should be MANDATORY if you are a 'winner'.
No sellout, you still MUST buy.
I don't think the present system is that bad, as long as there is an initial 'Household Limit' that is rigorously enforced by address.
Selling to current long standing, customers, dealers and members first will just keep the low mint coins out of the hands of new collectors which is against the mints reason to come out with low mint coins. Create a buzz to increase the collector base, get more people interested. Im not even sure being a gov agency if giving priorities to certain groups is even possible. I dont know how many there are like me but this experience has me looking at mint coins i never did before. I am usually just stacking bullion and buying a few BU ASE MS70's of current years just to add a little value to them since its pretty cheap compared to buying a raw coin, paying for grading and hoping for a MS70. Now im thinking of collecting ASE proofs and reverse proofs. Im not going to be looking much for previous releases im just starting with the current year and since after next year this series ends and a new one begining with a new obverse, this is a good time to start. I even bought a proof Apollo 1oz coin last night which was not on my radar. Its kinda hooked me into dabbling in collecting.
It seems everybody is looking for a way to improve their own chance of being able to buy an item with limited availability.
The one thing I would like the mint to do is to let customers know ahead of time if they are going to lift household limits.
okay maybe
Only thing they can do is allowed early sign up like subscription. They need to upgrade bandwidth for these kinds of release other wise No. When the collecting market goes up and people are able to flip they make money and that’s a good thing for our industry as a whole so I would go against those kinds of changes. Fair is fair.
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This sounds reasonable AND I anticipate some negative comments.
What do you think of this additional ideas to go along with yours for release day sales:
These are off the top of my head so comments and changes would be appreciated.
I like the excitement of the 5-minute sellout for issues like these. First come, first served. A lottery just waters down the whole process.
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
A better question is:
Why should the mint care?
They had 260,000 people on the hook for that product (with only 30,000 available). They had a 800% demand increase over the production level. I see no reason why they should do/alter/participate in different business rules if they guarantee their own sell-out. Shoot, the mint made a profit as well.
This just seems like sour grapes. Ask TicketMaster if they "care" about scalpers....or at least if they did for the first decade or two of their existence.
A lottery favors dealers, so go ahead. I look forward to the complaints about the lottery.
"Should the US Mint have a lottery for established customers?"
Should the US Mint discriminate against people who haven't bought from them before?
Just put them in cereal boxes
And don’t tell anyone they are special
Wow...people still griping about the ERP sale? Get over it.... I did not get one.... yep, disappointed... Oh well, on to the next thing.... Have a great day, I will. Cheers, RickO
It's easy to tell who got one and who didn't when you read the threads.
Early American Copper, Bust and Seated.
I got a whole bunch that i paid $500 and up to get. I would have loved to buy 1000 at $66.
I spend $10k to $20k per year with the Mint. I would love some kind of preference.
The household limit gets in my way since I buy multiples. I'd love a bulk discount.
But rather than sit here and complain that the system isn't designed around ME. I just work with it as it is.
There's really no solution when talking about a low mintage coin with a huge collector base. Lottery great, but I would be just as disappointed as I am now if not selected.
These people want a lottery where they are the only entrant.
There were 250k people online. The Mint customer base is 500k. They would have half the odds they had.
A lottery system should be used if there is a genuine reason to limit the mintage in the first place... like lack of planchets, production difficulty or something like that.
But otherwise, the Mint should not limit mintages to try to create an artificial rarity... mint them to demand when possible.
Michael Kittle Rare Coins --- 1908-S Indian Head Cent Grading Set --- No. 1 1909 Mint Set --- Kittlecoins on Facebook --- Long Beach Table 448
No lottery. I never win lotteries. No matter how you make up new rules, loyalties, past purchases, age, first come first serve, coins in bag are yours, faster servers, better service, etc. etc....the cold hard fact is that there is a limited amount of these and not everyone can have one period. It's the very thing that makes everyone want one, that they are extremely limited.> @ricko said:
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