2022…First the Negro Leagues Fizzle and Now the Purple Heart Coins Underperform…
RichR
Posts: 3,875 ✭✭✭✭✭
Did the Mint’s new security screens/presale policies reveal that flippers have been artificially levitating Mint sales for the past several years???
Or conversely…is the Mint simply putting out more mediocrity than the market can absorb?
I just find it interesting that these series have now both received a relatively cold shoulder.
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The Mint needs to seriously consider bringjng in real artists and let them create coins and medals that people are proud to buy and put into their collections.
Enough with the committees and low relief crappy designs.
Dead Cat Waltz Exonumia
"Coin collecting for outcasts..."
The commemorative coin series have been underperforming for a long time. Part of the reason is that there are too many of coins issues, and they are now too expensive. Collectors buy these things, and the values drop like a stone. At least nine out of ten of the commemorative coins have been losers, except when the melt value has come to exceed the issue price.
I bought a lot of gold issues in the secondary market at lower than issue prices. I've made out okay because the increase in gold bullion, but they are worth no more than melt, perhaps a little less.
You are not going to get very many investors or flippers when there is no money to be made.
The apparently lukewarm reception for the PH coins actually did surprise me, largely due to the obvious military/veteran connections…so now I’m thinking there’s a bigger trend at work re new Mint issues…and possibly not only commens.
Calculate what it costs to purchase one of each US Mint item for a recent year and you will see why sales are down. They have priced themselves out of the market. As sales and interest in new issues drop their "flipability" drops as well.
None of these had low enough mintages to be flippable.
Most Mint commems were not flippable.
And even the scarcer ones - well, there are now lots of scarcer ones thereby possibly making scarce not so in at least some aspects....
Well, just Love coins, period.
There have been too many of them. Thumb through your Red Book and see how many there are. When I first saw the "Purple Heart" title, my old brain thought, "Haven't they done that before?" And then I remembered, There was a Medal of Honor set. Add to that Five Star Generals, the three piece dollar set from years ago, the Korean War 38th anniversary and World War II. After a while it gets to be enough.
Lately it seems like the most commemoratives have either been about sports or military. I’m still collecting the silver dollars and clad 50cs so I will buy whatever the mint churns out but it seems like there’s fewer and fewer of us. Sure, modern commemoratives have lower mintages set an a lot of classic commems but that’s not exactly a glowing endorsement given the performance of the classic series in the past 10 years.
The series is too rich for my blood but I do think some of the five dollar gold coins could prove to be a good value. I’ve heard from several sources a lot of these are getting melted down post-market due to lack of demand
Overpriced commemeratives. I wanted the silver PH but felt the reverse design was lacking or flat out wrong. The poor sales for the Negro Leagues commem's is partially a result of a country being smoothered by all things African American. Using Rube Foster? vs a known like Satchel Page was also a mistake. And a bus? Not much imaginaton to these offerings.
USAF veteran 1984-2005
Skipping Satchel Paige was a terrible idea. Even the most casual baseball fan knows his name.
I think in addition to high pricing equal to $2,700 gold for example, a lot has to do with the presale concept. I refuse to buy from the mint so far this year because they do not have the coins available to actually sell.
When I make a purchase, I actually like to get something sent to me within a few days, not an order number and a promise to send me something in 3 months.
My US Mint Commemorative Medal Set
I made myself a promise that I hope to keep.
I will not buy any coins directly from the mint.
I will only buy 3rd party TPG coins.
Wayne
Kennedys are my quest...
Most Mint commems are "floppable"?
Pete
Rube Foster was a brilliant baseball executive, but nobody knows who he was unless you are a baseball history nerd. The mint should have found a place for Satchel Paige.
The baseball commem was the last I bought from the mint.
A few silver and clad of both the half and dollar.
It was such a fiasco and was over 4 months before the final coins reached my po box.
Never again.
"If I say something in the woods and my wife isn't there to hear it.....am I still wrong?"
My Washington Quarter Registry set...in progress
Yawn and another big Yawn.
The designs are entirely uninspiring….I gotta be inspired to spend that much over spot.
Could be worse. When I first ordered from the mint, it was a promise to send something in 6-8 months, maybe. And there was no order number.
This was all very predictable. Not surprised.
Too many issues, too expensive, too many gimmicks.
Those were the days.
The order forms were computer cards where you filled in the squares, ordered months in advance, with two issues per year - proof sets and mint sets.
You took what you got, very rarely heard of anyone returning for replacement. No TPGs so no chasing 70s.
But...but.. things were always better in "the good old days"... when proofs were rarely cameo.
My good old days are not quite that old. All of my proofs were nicely frosted.
Will there ever be another one like this??
I so wanted to order that at the time but the luster just didn’t work for me. I really, really wanted a frosty look. That’s something the mint just won’t do anymore.
I think it’s a combination of price, design and quantity.
The prices are too high for what you’re getting, the designs are so boring and unappealing overall and there are too many offerings from the mint.
Seems like they’re starting a new “series” every other month and churning out commemoratives just to sell something.
Maybe the mint should only issue a commemorative coin when there’s actually something worth commemorating.
Imagine if there were 5-10 years between each commemorative coin release.
I do not purchase coins to flip. If I do order a mint coin, it is because I like it, or it represents something special to me. Either way, it takes a place in my collection and will remain there. Yes, their offerings are expensive. The way for the public to combat that issue, is not to buy them. Cheers, RickO
A lot of collectors don't like "frosty." They want "brilliant." Even the grading services often give a boost for bright luster. A coin that might grade MS-64, given the number marks it has, gets an MS-65 because it's bright.
For me it is just too much. I don't buy to flip but to keep and would try to get at least one of each issue excluding the gold issues. I especially enjoyed the Silver Eagle series but then started getting shut out of every single special edition that was produced because I was at work when they went on sale. That soured me on the ASE's a bit and now it is hard to keep up with the products due to the quantity. That combined with the fact I can often find them shortly after issue in the secondary market at a lower price than issue, well not much ordered from the Mint these days!
K
They should have opened with the proof Morgan / Peace dollars or a new ASE - that would have linked the momentum from last season to this season ...
They need a better marketing team ...
There are a number of Purple Heart challenge coins out there. Here's one with a simple design:
Which just seems odd to me. Frosty just looks better to me. Brilliant looks like it's chromed or something.
Maybe get rid of the ugliness and get with some beautiful designs on the coins the mint makes. All coins are lacking art is my opinion why the sales are down.
Are you guys talking about frosty fields, as in satin?
Or frosty devices, as in frosted?
No value for me on several levels.
OMG...I love these! I realize we are getting kind of sideways in this thread, but when these came out I purchased one the first day and then immediately sold it to someone else who "needed" it for a large profit, which was simply the going rate at the time. Later, I purchased two more for myself and then I sat there on December 31 looking at the US Mint website and the coins were going off-sale at 5:00 PM and at around 4:45 PM my wife finally said to me "buy more!" so I picked up another half-dozen at 4:59 with mere seconds to go before they went dark on the US Mint page. I may have bought the last half-dozen sold!
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
I need a wife like that!
It's apparent that the Mint eliminated the "market makers" (speculators) with their current policy of ordering & presale options. As much as most of us disliked those rascals, they did determine the initial inflated values. Current prices will be determined what the collecting communities is willing to pay and what the potential profit could be. ( I see no profit potential in most of the US Mints recent offerings, unless PM's increase by at least 50%+, and I don't see that in the picture)
I’m referring to the classic look of production Morgan Dollars and St. Gaudens. That frosty production look.
This is one example I have handy:
That’s interesting, I wouldn’t describe the typical look of a Morgan as frosty. I think they tend to be brilliant (the opposite of modern commems, which seem frosty in a negative, ie dull, sense.)
I guess it depends on the terms one got familiar with at one time. I don’t own any Morgan dollars or I’d show an example or what I mean. I do understand what you’re saying, though. There are many Morgans like that.
In any case if the look of the 2009 (or other modern gold commems) had this look I’d be more interested in them:
@TurtleCat: yes, that one dollar gold is a wonderful coin. I might describe it as a "lustrous frosty" as opposed to the distressingly "flat frosty" that seems to be the norm for modern unc. commems (both gold and silver)
Oh yeah love me some frost
Twin sister:
There is an NGC graded MS 68 on sale for $2400.00
https://www.usacoinbook.com/item/2009-20-saint-gaudens-double-eagle-gold-coin-ngc-graded-ms-68-1-oz-24-karat-522208/
Wonder if it is a good price for it.
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/u-s-coins/quarters/PCGS-2020-quarter-quest/album/247091
I've already got a purple heart so what do I need a purple heart coin for?
You're conflating commems with other Mint products. Very few commemoratives are ever flippable. Even things like the Apollo coins were not flippable. The majority of the flipping was on limited edition Eagles with special finishes or mint marks. That works because there are a couple hundred thousand Eagle collectors. There are probably only 10,000 to 20,000 "Mint commemorative collectors" (people who buy them all) and the mintages are almost always 100,000 or more.
Last January, before any flipper elimination, the Mint released the Christie McAuliffe commemorative and the Law Enforcement commemorative. There was no panic buying, no immediate sellout, no flipping whatsoever.
Launch Week...w/e 02/27/2022
2022 NATIONAL PURPLE HEART GOLD PROOF 1,345 $681.25 $916,281.25
2022 NATIONAL PURPLE HEART GOLD UNC 812 $671.25 $545,055.00
2022 NATIONAL PURPLE HEART SILVER PROOF 19,644 $74.00 $1,453,656.00
2022 NATIONAL PURPLE HEART SILVER UNC 6,170 $69.00 $425,730.00
2022 NATIONAL PURPLE HEART CLAD PROOF 10,360 $35.00 $362,600.00
2022 NATIONAL PURPLE HEART CLAD UNC 6,258 $33.00 $206,514.00
2022 NATIONAL PURPLE HEART 3-COIN SET 2,447 $799.50 $1,956,376.50
Solid numbers.
I thought so...
I've been saying this for years. Most, if not all of the designs considered by many to be the best U.S. designs were created in sculpture by sculptors (St. Gaudens, Weinman, MacNeil, Fraser, etc.). The mint should stop accepting drawings and only accept sculpted designs. It's the translation of the drawings by engravers that produces the low-releif crap designs we're seeing coming steadily from the mint, IMO.
How many of those options are significantly above 50% of total available (or higher)? Because sales generally fall off the table in subsequent weeks.