@jwitten said:
I think you’re confused. The us mint email confirmed that NJ lost. Again.
@tcollects said:
I don't know what's more hilarious - that NJ spent hundreds of hours on this thread, that his haters lost this epic coin forum battle in the end, or that it only took a short email to the mint to get an answer
ahahaha that's beautiful, after all that arguing, what a hill to die on, and I didn't even get it, hilarious
@HalfDime said:
The person with all the answers to this riddle is Michael White at the US Mint. With all of the questions I am surprised that the coin sites have not contacted him on the total sales.
Can't speak for the "coin sites", or numis-media, but I contacted Mr. White's office, and inquired. The person that I interacted with could not answer in real-time, but promised a response. 'If/when' I hear back, I will post the info here.
The Mint responded to my inquiry about the '230th Anniversary Flowing Hair Silver Medal' (24YH) mintage level. A screenshot follows.
Thank you @MetroD for obtaining this valuable info from the MInt.....great job!
And kudos to @NJCoin who deserves some real cred for harping on the 50k mintage of the silver FH Medal against lots of resistance from other posters.
Under the circumstances, I'm not going to concede being wrong about the secondary market pricing of the non-privys, since I had no way to know they would gratuitously limit the mintage to 2/3 of the authorized total. But I will give a shout out to @jmlanzaf for recognizing the possibility, or even likelihood, of the mintage being limited when I could not imagine it.
Yes, you know what happens when we ASSume things!
I sure do! But, at the end of the day, you either take people and institutions at their word, or you go through life flying blind.
Didn't ASSume anything. Read a Mint press release, and all the accompanying information on its website, and took them at face value. That turns out to have been a mistake.
No, you assumed they would mint the limit, not understanding that "limit" doesn't mean "production commitment."
But since he firmly believed that they wouldn't be popular or sell out at 75k, i don't see his the 50k mintage is even relevant. They were/are simply more popular than he thought... by a lot.
Again, please stop saying that, because it's not true. That was before they announced the lottery.
As I have repeated said since the day they announced the lottery, these were always going to sell out. Regardless of how many they were going to make.
The question then became whether or not they would accept returns after privys were stripped from packages. Please go back and look if you don't believe me. It's all here, in black and white. Multiple long winded posts. Won't be hard to find.
I was talking about before the privy announcement. We are now after the privy lottery and the secondary market remains hotter than you predicted. You predicted $70. Yet, here we are with 50k sold (as many or more than you would have predicted pre-privy) and they have not fallen to that level. Period. Just admit you were wrong about the secondary market price. It's not that hard to say.
Again, of course. The mintage turns out to have been 2/3 of what was announced. Of course they are going to do better than anything anyone would have predicted with a 50% higher mintage.
And yes, it is hard to say. You are correct that I don't think they would have sold more than 50K without a lottery. Apparently they weren't sure they could sell more than that WITH the lottery!
That said, my $70 prediction was based on 75K, not 50K. Raw coins are currently steady at $225. Definitely higher than I would have predicted, so I guess I can admit that.
Beyond that, I don't know what to say, because all of this is unprecedented and unforeseeable. The lottery to move the 75K. Choosing not to even try to move the 75K. No announcing that until a month later. Etc.
All bets are off for me, because I couldn't see any of that. Same with the gold now.
Everything I am saying is based on 230 privys, 17,500 regular coins, no lottery, etc. If they just seed the 17,500 with privys, that will change my thoughts. Same if the 230 becomes 2300. Or if the 17,500 becomes 7,500. Or if they drop the premium by $500.
I am making predictions based on what they are announcing. There is plenty of room for disagreement, apparently, even if they do what they say they are going to do.
Beating me up because they pull things out of thin air, and I turn out to be wrong as a result, is kind of pointless. Unless it makes certain people feel good.
Because I certainly don't feel bad about taking what a US Government agency says at face value. And I will continue to do so. And not feel bad if they don't follow through, and my predictions don't pan out as a result.
@Goldminers said:
Where are all these 1,794 silver privies? Not seeing very many graded, or even for sale yet, compared to the total. If more showed up, the price would probably be dropping a little more. Same with the "50,000" standard ones. I also thought the actual sales prices would be dropping a little more for 70's at this stage.
I sent mine in for grading and they haven't even opened it and entered it into the system yet.
Aren't you answering your own question regarding where all the medals are? 😀
If dealers were holding inventory off the market waiting for Mint confirmation that the mintage would be 1/3 less than initially announced, that would be the smart move, and would also explain why you aren't seeing them for sale. Yet.
As far as prices dropping, 70s, 69s, raw, that will depend on just how many have been held off the market, and whether there is greater demand for them than otherwise with the lower announced mintage when they do hit the market. I actually have no opinion now, but could make an argument that they either go up or down from here, given that it's a one-off with a final mintage of 50K.
@Goldminers said:
I sent mine in for grading and they haven't even opened it and entered it into the system yet.
When did they get it? They've been entering mine about 2 days after receipt lately. I sent mine in the day after I got it and I already have mine back and graded - Modern Economy Service.
@NJCoin said:
Again, of course. The mintage turns out to have been 2/3 of what was announced. Of course they are going to do better than anything anyone would have predicted with a 50% higher mintage.
You seem to be missing the key words.
They didn't announce a mintage of 75k. The announced a LIMIT of 75k. You ASSumed them to be the same but they are not.
@Goldminers said:
I sent mine in for grading and they haven't even opened it and entered it into the system yet.
When did they get it? They've been entering mine about 2 days after receipt lately. I sent mine in the day after I got it and I already have mine back and graded - Modern Economy Service.
@NJCoin said:
Again, of course. The mintage turns out to have been 2/3 of what was announced. Of course they are going to do better than anything anyone would have predicted with a 50% higher mintage.
You seem to be missing the key words.
They didn't announce a mintage of 75k. The announced a LIMIT of 75k. You ASSumed them to be the same but they are not.
Yes. A HUGE ASSumption. Because they NEVER mint to the limit when the demand is there. This would have been the first time.
And they always create a lottery to sell 2/3 of a mintage limit. My bad. I missed the key words. 🤣🤣
What's the point of announcing a mintage LIMIT if it doesn't mean anything, and they could end up only making and selling a fraction of the limit, regardless of demand?
Why not just say nothing, and only tell us through sales reports and Unavailable notices on the website, after the fact, what they are minting and making available for sale? That way there would be no room for bad ASSumptions?
Maybe because this is the first time, EVER, that they killed a product short of the mintage limit when there was demand, and no apparent reason, such as supply chain issues, that they could not mint to the limit?
This time, for whatever reason, they chose to make 50K when they announced a limit of 75K, seeded that 50K with the 1794 privys without announcing THAT ahead of time, and then unilaterally chose to go with that, without announcing anything until a month later.
And then, only in response to a written inquiry. Leading to an unjustified ASSumption. Yes, my bad. What was I thinking? 🤣🤣
Less than 2 hours to go! I'm glad we have people on the ground in Baltimore to report. Photos of the US Mint booth in Baltimore would be greatly appreciated!
@NJCoin This time, for whatever reason, they chose to make 50K when they announced a limit of 75K, seeded that 50K with the 1794 privys without announcing THAT ahead of time, and then unilaterally chose to go with that, without announcing anything until a month later.
Did you ever think the Mint or their distributor(s) made a mistake and included all the privys in the 50,000 instead of holding back 1/3. Believe the coins with privys would have been minted first and that obv die retired. Somebody made a mistake and couldn't count. So that even after sales were good on Day 1 and demand grew in the market, they decided they couldn't mint the last 25,000 without any privys to distribute.
I wonder how many privies will end up sitting in original Mint boxes, held by ordinary but oblivious collectors, not realizing they are worth considerable market premiums.
@coastaljerseyguy said: @NJCoin This time, for whatever reason, they chose to make 50K when they announced a limit of 75K, seeded that 50K with the 1794 privys without announcing THAT ahead of time, and then unilaterally chose to go with that, without announcing anything until a month later.
Did you ever think the Mint or their distributor(s) made a mistake and included all the privys in the 50,000 instead of holding back 1/3. Believe the coins with privys would have been minted first and that obv die retired. Somebody made a mistake and couldn't count. So that even after sales were good on Day 1 and demand grew in the market, they decided they couldn't mint the last 25,000 without any privys to distribute.
Nope. Of course, anything is possible, but that would be a pretty big mistake. And pretty difficult to make, IMHO.
They do this for a living. Confusing 50K with 75K would be pretty inconceivable. Hopefully, someday, Coin World will get to the bottom of what actually happened, and report it to the world. But I'm not holding my breath.
@coastaljerseyguy said: @NJCoin This time, for whatever reason, they chose to make 50K when they announced a limit of 75K, seeded that 50K with the 1794 privys without announcing THAT ahead of time, and then unilaterally chose to go with that, without announcing anything until a month later.
Did you ever think the Mint or their distributor(s) made a mistake and included all the privys in the 50,000 instead of holding back 1/3. Believe the coins with privys would have been minted first and that obv die retired. Somebody made a mistake and couldn't count. So that even after sales were good on Day 1 and demand grew in the market, they decided they couldn't mint the last 25,000 without any privys to distribute.
Nope. Of course, anything is possible, but that would be a pretty big mistake. And pretty difficult to make, IMHO.
They do this for a living. Confusing 50K with 75K would be pretty inconceivable. Hopefully, someday, Coin World will get to the bottom of what actually happened, and report it to the world. But I'm not holding my breath.
...the investigative journalists of Coin World haha oh man
@coastaljerseyguy said: @NJCoin This time, for whatever reason, they chose to make 50K when they announced a limit of 75K, seeded that 50K with the 1794 privys without announcing THAT ahead of time, and then unilaterally chose to go with that, without announcing anything until a month later.
Did you ever think the Mint or their distributor(s) made a mistake and included all the privys in the 50,000 instead of holding back 1/3. Believe the coins with privys would have been minted first and that obv die retired. Somebody made a mistake and couldn't count. So that even after sales were good on Day 1 and demand grew in the market, they decided they couldn't mint the last 25,000 without any privys to distribute.
Nope. Of course, anything is possible, but that would be a pretty big mistake. And pretty difficult to make, IMHO.
They do this for a living. Confusing 50K with 75K would be pretty inconceivable. Hopefully, someday, Coin World will get to the bottom of what actually happened, and report it to the world. But I'm not holding my breath.
...the investigative journalists of Coin World haha oh man
Lol. I'm not sure why anyone really cares what the details are.
@coastaljerseyguy said: @NJCoin This time, for whatever reason, they chose to make 50K when they announced a limit of 75K, seeded that 50K with the 1794 privys without announcing THAT ahead of time, and then unilaterally chose to go with that, without announcing anything until a month later.
Did you ever think the Mint or their distributor(s) made a mistake and included all the privys in the 50,000 instead of holding back 1/3. Believe the coins with privys would have been minted first and that obv die retired. Somebody made a mistake and couldn't count. So that even after sales were good on Day 1 and demand grew in the market, they decided they couldn't mint the last 25,000 without any privys to distribute.
Nope. Of course, anything is possible, but that would be a pretty big mistake. And pretty difficult to make, IMHO.
They do this for a living. Confusing 50K with 75K would be pretty inconceivable. Hopefully, someday, Coin World will get to the bottom of what actually happened, and report it to the world. But I'm not holding my breath.
...the investigative journalists of Coin World haha oh man
Lol. I'm not sure why anyone really cares what the details are.
Maybe because, for some at least, there is real money involved.
As you point out all the time, at the end of the day these are all nothing more than pretty trinkets whose intrinsic value is tied to the price of the precious metals they contain.
Any additional value is conferred upon them by collectors. Not by dealers, and not even by the Mint itself.
As a result, how 75K became 50K, and how dealers got their hands on more privys with a 50K mintage than they would have had the Mint not changed things up at the last minute might be important to the people who are counted on to continue playing along.
Jerk them around enough times, and the Mint will be competing with the now defunct the Franklin Mint for collectors' attention and dollars. That's why details matter.
Who decided what, and why? We'll likely never be told, but that doesn't mean it's not something a leading industry publication shouldn't be pursuing it. It's a small thing called accountability.
Especially with respect to a federal agency ultimately accountable to taxpayers. That's why it's important. At least to me. Others can obviously speak for themselves.
If the Mint takes the position that it can simply do whatever it wants, with no transparency or accountability to its customer base, particularly for numismatic products, it will ultimately find itself in the exact same position as many other organizations selling discretionary consumer products who take their customers and market for granted. Diminished or gone.
@coastaljerseyguy said: @NJCoin This time, for whatever reason, they chose to make 50K when they announced a limit of 75K, seeded that 50K with the 1794 privys without announcing THAT ahead of time, and then unilaterally chose to go with that, without announcing anything until a month later.
Did you ever think the Mint or their distributor(s) made a mistake and included all the privys in the 50,000 instead of holding back 1/3. Believe the coins with privys would have been minted first and that obv die retired. Somebody made a mistake and couldn't count. So that even after sales were good on Day 1 and demand grew in the market, they decided they couldn't mint the last 25,000 without any privys to distribute.
Nope. Of course, anything is possible, but that would be a pretty big mistake. And pretty difficult to make, IMHO.
They do this for a living. Confusing 50K with 75K would be pretty inconceivable. Hopefully, someday, Coin World will get to the bottom of what actually happened, and report it to the world. But I'm not holding my breath.
...the investigative journalists of Coin World haha oh man
Lol. I'm not sure why anyone really cares what the details are.
Maybe because, for some at least, there is real money involved.
As you point out all the time, at the end of the day these are all nothing more than pretty trinkets whose intrinsic value is tied to the price of the precious metals they contain.
Any additional value is conferred upon them by collectors. Not by dealers, and not even by the Mint itself.
As a result, how 75K became 50K, and how dealers got their hands on more privys with a 50K mintage than they would have had the Mint not changed things up at the last minute might be important to the people who are counted on to continue playing along.
Jerk them around enough times, and the Mint will be competing with the now defunct the Franklin Mint for collectors' attention and dollars. That's why details matter.
Who decided what, and why? We'll likely never be told, but that doesn't mean it's not something a leading industry publication shouldn't be pursuing it. It's a small thing called accountability.
Especially with respect to a federal agency ultimately accountable to taxpayers. That's why it's important. At least to me. Others can obviously speak for themselves.
If the Mint takes the position that it can simply do whatever it wants, with no transparency or accountability to its customer base, particularly for numismatic products, it will ultimately find itself in the exact same position as many other organizations selling discretionary consumer products who take their customers and market for granted. Diminished or gone.
Still don't care about the details. They only made 50k. Meh. Does it matter of they were out of blanks or out of boxes or just didn't think they could sell 75k? Not to me.
@coastaljerseyguy said: @NJCoin This time, for whatever reason, they chose to make 50K when they announced a limit of 75K, seeded that 50K with the 1794 privys without announcing THAT ahead of time, and then unilaterally chose to go with that, without announcing anything until a month later.
Did you ever think the Mint or their distributor(s) made a mistake and included all the privys in the 50,000 instead of holding back 1/3. Believe the coins with privys would have been minted first and that obv die retired. Somebody made a mistake and couldn't count. So that even after sales were good on Day 1 and demand grew in the market, they decided they couldn't mint the last 25,000 without any privys to distribute.
Nope. Of course, anything is possible, but that would be a pretty big mistake. And pretty difficult to make, IMHO.
They do this for a living. Confusing 50K with 75K would be pretty inconceivable. Hopefully, someday, Coin World will get to the bottom of what actually happened, and report it to the world. But I'm not holding my breath.
...the investigative journalists of Coin World haha oh man
Lol. I'm not sure why anyone really cares what the details are.
Maybe because, for some at least, there is real money involved.
As you point out all the time, at the end of the day these are all nothing more than pretty trinkets whose intrinsic value is tied to the price of the precious metals they contain.
Any additional value is conferred upon them by collectors. Not by dealers, and not even by the Mint itself.
As a result, how 75K became 50K, and how dealers got their hands on more privys with a 50K mintage than they would have had the Mint not changed things up at the last minute might be important to the people who are counted on to continue playing along.
Jerk them around enough times, and the Mint will be competing with the now defunct the Franklin Mint for collectors' attention and dollars. That's why details matter.
Who decided what, and why? We'll likely never be told, but that doesn't mean it's not something a leading industry publication shouldn't be pursuing it. It's a small thing called accountability.
Especially with respect to a federal agency ultimately accountable to taxpayers. That's why it's important. At least to me. Others can obviously speak for themselves.
If the Mint takes the position that it can simply do whatever it wants, with no transparency or accountability to its customer base, particularly for numismatic products, it will ultimately find itself in the exact same position as many other organizations selling discretionary consumer products who take their customers and market for granted. Diminished or gone.
Still don't care about the details. They only made 50k. Meh. Does it matter of they were out of blanks or out of boxes or just didn't think they could sell 75k? Not to me.
Yes, it matters. It matters, not that they ran out of anything, or thought they couldn't sell any amount.
It matters that they sprinkled 1794 privys among 50K, knowing that they weren't going to be making or selling the other 25K. Certainly not with privys sprinkled in.
They then distributed around 10K to early buyers. Not 5K, 10% of 50K. Not 7.5K, 10% of 75K. 10K, 20% of the 50K they seeded with privys.
The missing 25K came entirely from what would have been a public distribution. ABPP dealers won. Everyone else lost. It is worthy of an explanation.
ABPP could have been cut back. It was not. If anything, it was increased.
Deserves an explanation. Regardless of whether it was blanks (doubtful), packaging (doubtful), or, in hindsight, the Mint's likely solution to a potential non privy return problem by placing a disproportionate share in dealer hands, and then propping up secondary market value by cutting back supply.
If that is indeed what happened, the right way to have handled that would have been to cut ABPP back to 5K, and make 45K available to the rest of us. That didn't happen.
We deserve to know why, and who made the call. The privys were an instant $3-5K windfall to the lucky lottery winners.
Except anyone able to buy a box of 100 was a guaranteed winner, with no element of chance. 1794 spread across 50K instead of 75K meant an extra $3-5K in every box for a dealer, at the expense of retail buyers who didn't get to play after they sold out far earlier than would have been the case had the additional 25K been made available.
It pains me to admit it, since my instinct has always been to give those guys the benefit of the doubt, but I really think you and @HATTRICK are on to something here. Which is why I think we'll never get a straight answer.
The payback will come when the public starts to question everything they say, followed by tuning them out and losing interest in future offerings like this. That didn't happen this time with the gold, but if they keep it up, they will end up killing the proverbial Golden Goose. Then they'll be sorry they messed around like this, for the benefit of the Big Blue are the expense of the end customers.
@coastaljerseyguy said: @NJCoin This time, for whatever reason, they chose to make 50K when they announced a limit of 75K, seeded that 50K with the 1794 privys without announcing THAT ahead of time, and then unilaterally chose to go with that, without announcing anything until a month later.
Did you ever think the Mint or their distributor(s) made a mistake and included all the privys in the 50,000 instead of holding back 1/3. Believe the coins with privys would have been minted first and that obv die retired. Somebody made a mistake and couldn't count. So that even after sales were good on Day 1 and demand grew in the market, they decided they couldn't mint the last 25,000 without any privys to distribute.
Nope. Of course, anything is possible, but that would be a pretty big mistake. And pretty difficult to make, IMHO.
They do this for a living. Confusing 50K with 75K would be pretty inconceivable. Hopefully, someday, Coin World will get to the bottom of what actually happened, and report it to the world. But I'm not holding my breath.
...the investigative journalists of Coin World haha oh man
Lol. I'm not sure why anyone really cares what the details are.
Maybe because, for some at least, there is real money involved.
As you point out all the time, at the end of the day these are all nothing more than pretty trinkets whose intrinsic value is tied to the price of the precious metals they contain.
Any additional value is conferred upon them by collectors. Not by dealers, and not even by the Mint itself.
As a result, how 75K became 50K, and how dealers got their hands on more privys with a 50K mintage than they would have had the Mint not changed things up at the last minute might be important to the people who are counted on to continue playing along.
Jerk them around enough times, and the Mint will be competing with the now defunct the Franklin Mint for collectors' attention and dollars. That's why details matter.
Who decided what, and why? We'll likely never be told, but that doesn't mean it's not something a leading industry publication shouldn't be pursuing it. It's a small thing called accountability.
Especially with respect to a federal agency ultimately accountable to taxpayers. That's why it's important. At least to me. Others can obviously speak for themselves.
If the Mint takes the position that it can simply do whatever it wants, with no transparency or accountability to its customer base, particularly for numismatic products, it will ultimately find itself in the exact same position as many other organizations selling discretionary consumer products who take their customers and market for granted. Diminished or gone.
The mint could care less about collectors. Their job would be a lot easier if they didn't have to deal with collectors at all.
The purpose of the United States Mint is to produce coins for trade and commerce. I didn't know they need to make a profit.
@coastaljerseyguy said: @NJCoin This time, for whatever reason, they chose to make 50K when they announced a limit of 75K, seeded that 50K with the 1794 privys without announcing THAT ahead of time, and then unilaterally chose to go with that, without announcing anything until a month later.
Did you ever think the Mint or their distributor(s) made a mistake and included all the privys in the 50,000 instead of holding back 1/3. Believe the coins with privys would have been minted first and that obv die retired. Somebody made a mistake and couldn't count. So that even after sales were good on Day 1 and demand grew in the market, they decided they couldn't mint the last 25,000 without any privys to distribute.
Nope. Of course, anything is possible, but that would be a pretty big mistake. And pretty difficult to make, IMHO.
They do this for a living. Confusing 50K with 75K would be pretty inconceivable. Hopefully, someday, Coin World will get to the bottom of what actually happened, and report it to the world. But I'm not holding my breath.
...the investigative journalists of Coin World haha oh man
Lol. I'm not sure why anyone really cares what the details are.
Maybe because, for some at least, there is real money involved.
As you point out all the time, at the end of the day these are all nothing more than pretty trinkets whose intrinsic value is tied to the price of the precious metals they contain.
Any additional value is conferred upon them by collectors. Not by dealers, and not even by the Mint itself.
As a result, how 75K became 50K, and how dealers got their hands on more privys with a 50K mintage than they would have had the Mint not changed things up at the last minute might be important to the people who are counted on to continue playing along.
Jerk them around enough times, and the Mint will be competing with the now defunct the Franklin Mint for collectors' attention and dollars. That's why details matter.
Who decided what, and why? We'll likely never be told, but that doesn't mean it's not something a leading industry publication shouldn't be pursuing it. It's a small thing called accountability.
Especially with respect to a federal agency ultimately accountable to taxpayers. That's why it's important. At least to me. Others can obviously speak for themselves.
If the Mint takes the position that it can simply do whatever it wants, with no transparency or accountability to its customer base, particularly for numismatic products, it will ultimately find itself in the exact same position as many other organizations selling discretionary consumer products who take their customers and market for granted. Diminished or gone.
The mint could care less about collectors. Their job would be a lot easier if they didn't have to deal with collectors at all.
The purpose of the United States Mint is to produce coins for trade and commerce. I didn't know they need to make a profit.
True enough. But, if they really felt that way, we'd all be pulling coins out of circulation.
Or not collecting moderns at all. Because, if we were really such a nuisance and time sink, they would not run a numismatic program for us.
It's true that they seemingly care a lot less about us than about the Big Boys. But the industry is real, and generates a ton of money for the GCs, SBs and HAs of the world. And the ABPP dealers. And, of course, the Mint.
Needless to say, without collectors, they'd all have to find something else to do while the Mint went back to wasting taxpayer money producing nickels and cents. The Mint is an important part of the numismatic ecosystem.
They know it, and, unfortunately for the rest of us, seem to cater to its largest members rather than its ultimately most important ones.
@coastaljerseyguy said: @NJCoin This time, for whatever reason, they chose to make 50K when they announced a limit of 75K, seeded that 50K with the 1794 privys without announcing THAT ahead of time, and then unilaterally chose to go with that, without announcing anything until a month later.
Did you ever think the Mint or their distributor(s) made a mistake and included all the privys in the 50,000 instead of holding back 1/3. Believe the coins with privys would have been minted first and that obv die retired. Somebody made a mistake and couldn't count. So that even after sales were good on Day 1 and demand grew in the market, they decided they couldn't mint the last 25,000 without any privys to distribute.
Nope. Of course, anything is possible, but that would be a pretty big mistake. And pretty difficult to make, IMHO.
They do this for a living. Confusing 50K with 75K would be pretty inconceivable. Hopefully, someday, Coin World will get to the bottom of what actually happened, and report it to the world. But I'm not holding my breath.
...the investigative journalists of Coin World haha oh man
Lol. I'm not sure why anyone really cares what the details are.
Maybe because, for some at least, there is real money involved.
As you point out all the time, at the end of the day these are all nothing more than pretty trinkets whose intrinsic value is tied to the price of the precious metals they contain.
Any additional value is conferred upon them by collectors. Not by dealers, and not even by the Mint itself.
As a result, how 75K became 50K, and how dealers got their hands on more privys with a 50K mintage than they would have had the Mint not changed things up at the last minute might be important to the people who are counted on to continue playing along.
Jerk them around enough times, and the Mint will be competing with the now defunct the Franklin Mint for collectors' attention and dollars. That's why details matter.
Who decided what, and why? We'll likely never be told, but that doesn't mean it's not something a leading industry publication shouldn't be pursuing it. It's a small thing called accountability.
Especially with respect to a federal agency ultimately accountable to taxpayers. That's why it's important. At least to me. Others can obviously speak for themselves.
If the Mint takes the position that it can simply do whatever it wants, with no transparency or accountability to its customer base, particularly for numismatic products, it will ultimately find itself in the exact same position as many other organizations selling discretionary consumer products who take their customers and market for granted. Diminished or gone.
The mint could care less about collectors. Their job would be a lot easier if they didn't have to deal with collectors at all.
The purpose of the United States Mint is to produce coins for trade and commerce. I didn't know they need to make a profit.
Reminds me of the quote, "If it weren't for all of these customers, I could get my work done!"
It pains me to admit it, since my instinct has always been to give those guys the benefit of the doubt, but I really think you and @HATTRICK are on to something here. Which is why I think we'll never get a straight answer.
The payback will come when the public starts to question everything they say, followed by tuning them out and losing interest in future offerings like this. That didn't happen this time with the gold, but if they keep it up, they will end up killing the proverbial Golden Goose. Then they'll be sorry they messed around like this, for the benefit of the Big Blue are the expense of the end customers.
Well they do work for "us" and they should operate transparently. In theory.
Is it that everyone is hunting the gold in the am and not seeing these have been available the last two mornings. Have been able to place in bag but no soap. Tired of the bots.
@fox9487 said:
Is it that everyone is hunting the gold in the am and not seeing these have been available the last two mornings. Have been able to place in bag but no soap. Tired of the bots.
Not everyone. Had mine in bag yesterday but still couldn't process fast enough this morning. Still in bag🙄
@joepabike said:
So the Mint revealed finally that they'd only produced a little more than half the mintage limit for the FG gold. Just seems so shady.
Actually, that's not what they revealed. They revealed that they are only selling 10,000 medals in this format. Whether the othere exist or not remains to be seen.
It also does not benefit them at all. If they had announced 10k product limit, it would have likely made these even more popular. Selling fewer didn't benefit them at all. Exactly how does this lower mintage hurt you? The only way is if you would have bought at 10k mintage but not at 15k.
We paid a premium, now we will see if cutting the production will hold values. I think it will. If that is the intent then I am all for that, and it should spark interest on future products knowing that the premium is justified.
Stop complaining people, your purchases are holding or exceeding the premium you paid.
@fathom said:
We paid a premium, now we will see if cutting the production will hold values. I think it will. If that is the intent then I am all for that, and it should spark interest on future products knowing that the premium is justified.
Stop complaining people, your purchases are holding or exceeding the premium you paid.
Good point. Collectors should be happy with their purchase and all the flippers made some money too.
Now about what's going on at the U.S. Mint? This warrants a congressional inquiry.
@fathom said:
We paid a premium, now we will see if cutting the production will hold values. I think it will. If that is the intent then I am all for that, and it should spark interest on future products knowing that the premium is justified.
Stop complaining people, your purchases are holding or exceeding the premium you paid.
Yeah, i don't understand the complaint...other than maybe they think they could have bought more to flip
@fathom said:
We paid a premium, now we will see if cutting the production will hold values. I think it will. If that is the intent then I am all for that, and it should spark interest on future products knowing that the premium is justified.
Stop complaining people, your purchases are holding or exceeding the premium you paid.
Yeah, i don't understand the complaint...other than maybe they think they could have bought more to flip
The complaints are likely from people who got shut out on the first day. Because you are right -- other than them, and maybe people who sold for small profits thinking the price won't hold with a mintage of 17.5K, no one else has anything to complain about.
I'm about to complain about conceding how bad my prediction was without knowing they at least momentarily cut the mintage in half. Kind of annoying, since I've been saying all along the mintage should have been the same 12.5K as the American Liberty high relief coins.
If they went all the way down to 10K without telling anyone, that's kind of BS, since that would have been relevant to people who took a pass at 17.5K but would have been interested at 10K.
Not being transparent about whether the remaining 7.5K is going to be released is also BS. If they keep playing games, they are going to eventually kill the Golden Goose. And, with it, their ability to sell tens of thousands of ounces of precious metals at multiples of their spot price.
@fathom said:
We paid a premium, now we will see if cutting the production will hold values. I think it will. If that is the intent then I am all for that, and it should spark interest on future products knowing that the premium is justified.
Stop complaining people, your purchases are holding or exceeding the premium you paid.
Yeah, i don't understand the complaint...other than maybe they think they could have bought more to flip
The complaints are likely from people who got shut out on the first day. Because you are right -- other than them, and maybe people who sold for small profits thinking the price won't hold with a mintage of 17.5K, no one else has anything to complain about.
I'm about to complain about conceding how bad my prediction was without knowing they at least momentarily cut the mintage in half. Kind of annoying, since I've been saying all along the mintage should have been the same 12.5K as the American Liberty high relief coins.
If they went all the way down to 10K without telling anyone, that's kind of BS, since that would have been relevant to people who took a pass at 17.5K but would have been interested at 10K.
It's actually not BS. It's only a problem for those who conflate and assume that the US mint will produce to the full limit.
Not being transparent about whether the remaining 7.5K is going to be released is also BS. If they keep playing games, they are going to eventually kill the Golden Goose. And, with it, their ability to sell tens of thousands of ounces of precious metals at multiples of their spot price.
Agreed, they should say what their plans are here.
@fathom said:
We paid a premium, now we will see if cutting the production will hold values. I think it will. If that is the intent then I am all for that, and it should spark interest on future products knowing that the premium is justified.
Stop complaining people, your purchases are holding or exceeding the premium you paid.
Yeah, i don't understand the complaint...other than maybe they think they could have bought more to flip
The complaints are likely from people who got shut out on the first day. Because you are right -- other than them, and maybe people who sold for small profits thinking the price won't hold with a mintage of 17.5K, no one else has anything to complain about.
I'm about to complain about conceding how bad my prediction was without knowing they at least momentarily cut the mintage in half. Kind of annoying, since I've been saying all along the mintage should have been the same 12.5K as the American Liberty high relief coins.
If they went all the way down to 10K without telling anyone, that's kind of BS, since that would have been relevant to people who took a pass at 17.5K but would have been interested at 10K.
It's actually not BS. It's only a problem for those who conflate and assume that the US mint will produce to the full limit.
Not being transparent about whether the remaining 7.5K is going to be released is also BS. If they keep playing games, they are going to eventually kill the Golden Goose. And, with it, their ability to sell tens of thousands of ounces of precious metals at multiples of their spot price.
Agreed, they should say what their plans are here.
Well, yeah! What's the point of announcing a maximum mintage they have no intention of producing, regardless of demand?
@fathom said:
We paid a premium, now we will see if cutting the production will hold values. I think it will. If that is the intent then I am all for that, and it should spark interest on future products knowing that the premium is justified.
Stop complaining people, your purchases are holding or exceeding the premium you paid.
Yeah, i don't understand the complaint...other than maybe they think they could have bought more to flip
The complaints are likely from people who got shut out on the first day. Because you are right -- other than them, and maybe people who sold for small profits thinking the price won't hold with a mintage of 17.5K, no one else has anything to complain about.
I'm about to complain about conceding how bad my prediction was without knowing they at least momentarily cut the mintage in half. Kind of annoying, since I've been saying all along the mintage should have been the same 12.5K as the American Liberty high relief coins.
If they went all the way down to 10K without telling anyone, that's kind of BS, since that would have been relevant to people who took a pass at 17.5K but would have been interested at 10K.
It's actually not BS. It's only a problem for those who conflate and assume that the US mint will produce to the full limit.
Not being transparent about whether the remaining 7.5K is going to be released is also BS. If they keep playing games, they are going to eventually kill the Golden Goose. And, with it, their ability to sell tens of thousands of ounces of precious metals at multiples of their spot price.
Agreed, they should say what their plans are here.
Well, yeah! What's the point of announcing a maximum mintage they have no intention of producing, regardless of demand?
I think someone with a devious mind, working at the mint, does this deliberately just to read your forum posts about it.
@fathom said:
We paid a premium, now we will see if cutting the production will hold values. I think it will. If that is the intent then I am all for that, and it should spark interest on future products knowing that the premium is justified.
Stop complaining people, your purchases are holding or exceeding the premium you paid.
Yeah, i don't understand the complaint...other than maybe they think they could have bought more to flip
The complaints are likely from people who got shut out on the first day. Because you are right -- other than them, and maybe people who sold for small profits thinking the price won't hold with a mintage of 17.5K, no one else has anything to complain about.
I'm about to complain about conceding how bad my prediction was without knowing they at least momentarily cut the mintage in half. Kind of annoying, since I've been saying all along the mintage should have been the same 12.5K as the American Liberty high relief coins.
If they went all the way down to 10K without telling anyone, that's kind of BS, since that would have been relevant to people who took a pass at 17.5K but would have been interested at 10K.
It's actually not BS. It's only a problem for those who conflate and assume that the US mint will produce to the full limit.
Not being transparent about whether the remaining 7.5K is going to be released is also BS. If they keep playing games, they are going to eventually kill the Golden Goose. And, with it, their ability to sell tens of thousands of ounces of precious metals at multiples of their spot price.
Agreed, they should say what their plans are here.
Well, yeah! What's the point of announcing a maximum mintage they have no intention of producing, regardless of demand?
I think someone with a devious mind, working at the mint, does this deliberately just to read your forum posts about it.
@fathom said:
We paid a premium, now we will see if cutting the production will hold values. I think it will. If that is the intent then I am all for that, and it should spark interest on future products knowing that the premium is justified.
Stop complaining people, your purchases are holding or exceeding the premium you paid.
Yeah, i don't understand the complaint...other than maybe they think they could have bought more to flip
The complaints are likely from people who got shut out on the first day. Because you are right -- other than them, and maybe people who sold for small profits thinking the price won't hold with a mintage of 17.5K, no one else has anything to complain about.
I'm about to complain about conceding how bad my prediction was without knowing they at least momentarily cut the mintage in half. Kind of annoying, since I've been saying all along the mintage should have been the same 12.5K as the American Liberty high relief coins.
If they went all the way down to 10K without telling anyone, that's kind of BS, since that would have been relevant to people who took a pass at 17.5K but would have been interested at 10K.
It's actually not BS. It's only a problem for those who conflate and assume that the US mint will produce to the full limit.
Not being transparent about whether the remaining 7.5K is going to be released is also BS. If they keep playing games, they are going to eventually kill the Golden Goose. And, with it, their ability to sell tens of thousands of ounces of precious metals at multiples of their spot price.
Agreed, they should say what their plans are here.
Well, yeah! What's the point of announcing a maximum mintage they have no intention of producing, regardless of demand?
I think someone with a devious mind, working at the mint, does this deliberately just to read your forum posts about it.
@fathom said:
We paid a premium, now we will see if cutting the production will hold values. I think it will. If that is the intent then I am all for that, and it should spark interest on future products knowing that the premium is justified.
Stop complaining people, your purchases are holding or exceeding the premium you paid.
Yeah, i don't understand the complaint...other than maybe they think they could have bought more to flip
The complaints are likely from people who got shut out on the first day. Because you are right -- other than them, and maybe people who sold for small profits thinking the price won't hold with a mintage of 17.5K, no one else has anything to complain about.
I'm about to complain about conceding how bad my prediction was without knowing they at least momentarily cut the mintage in half. Kind of annoying, since I've been saying all along the mintage should have been the same 12.5K as the American Liberty high relief coins.
If they went all the way down to 10K without telling anyone, that's kind of BS, since that would have been relevant to people who took a pass at 17.5K but would have been interested at 10K.
It's actually not BS. It's only a problem for those who conflate and assume that the US mint will produce to the full limit.
Not being transparent about whether the remaining 7.5K is going to be released is also BS. If they keep playing games, they are going to eventually kill the Golden Goose. And, with it, their ability to sell tens of thousands of ounces of precious metals at multiples of their spot price.
Agreed, they should say what their plans are here.
Well, yeah! What's the point of announcing a maximum mintage they have no intention of producing, regardless of demand?
I think someone with a devious mind, working at the mint, does this deliberately just to read your forum posts about it.
Perhaps. It's still the very definition of opacity. And, it is the height of gaslighting to accuse anyone of "conflating and assuming" by believing that an announced maximum mintage is the very amount that will be produced, assuming the Mint can sell them.
People make purchase decisions based on subject, design, price and mintage. Announcing any one of those elements, and then changing it without disclosure, is simply not right.
Not producing the maximum because they cannot, or due to lack of demand, is one thing. Making an arbitrary decision not to is something else entirely.
And conflating the two is gaslighting anyone who takes what the Mint announces at face value. As I said before, if the Mint keeps doing this, at these prices, they are going to find more and more people looking for another outlet for their collecting dollars.
My GF picked up a 2024 230 Flowing Hair silver from the Mint, her first time buying anything from the Mint. She bought one the day of issue like myself as well, mine was normal with no privy of course. I told her the odds of the privy are pretty remote.
Anyways, she had let her Mint package sit unopened until this weekend, as she had forgotten about it for a few weeks. I'm like, well open it up and see what you got. None of us expected to see a privy, just a pretty medal. And so she did:
2024 230 silver with Privy! And with signed COA! The privy was like "wow", but then the signed COA was like "holy wow!" Holy crap what luck!
The mint is at liberty to strike 25,000 more silver medals at any time. Contrary statements from the mint are little more than hot air. Whomever is at the helm is blindfolded.
The mint is at liberty to strike 25,000 more silver medals at any time. Contrary statements from the mint are little more than hot air. Whomever is at the helm is blindfolded.
Probably. But, announcing a maximum mintage and not producing to it, if demand warrants, is disingenuous. Flat out saying they won't make the additional 25K, and then making them anyway is something else entirely.
It's affirmatively lying, plain and simple. That would be taking it to a whole new level.
Which isn't to say it can't happen, because something has to give between them also affirmatively saying they made 17.5K gold, and then changing the product limit to 10K. Either the statement to Coin World that they minted 17.5K wasn't true, or 7.5K are now sitting in a warehouse waiting to hit the market in one form or another, since the "Product Limit" for the standalone coin is now 10K. Whatever they are doing, it isn't going to end well for them.
Once upon a time, the Perth Mint did something similar. They had a very popular 3 coin proof Lunar set, with a product limit of 1,000 and a 2 ounce coin that could only be obtained in the set. It was an instant sell out every year.
Then they got greedy, and decided to capitalize on the demand by making an additional 1K 2 ounce coins available by subscription, without telling people ahead of time what they would be doing. Like the US Mint now, they distinguished "mintage" from "product limit."
Disgusted a lot of people paying significant premiums to melt for limited edition products. Treating customers with disrespect, because you are a government agency that can do what you want, isn't really that smart when dealing with relatively high priced discretionary items.
Today, you can buy as many 3 coin sets or 2 ounce subscriptions form the Perth Mint as you want, because people got annoyed, the mint lost credibility, and it turns out collectors can actually lead happy and fulfilling lives without Perth Mint proof Lunar coins. Based on the sales of lots of current US Mint products, this reality is not limited to Australia.
@fathom said:
We paid a premium, now we will see if cutting the production will hold values. I think it will. If that is the intent then I am all for that, and it should spark interest on future products knowing that the premium is justified.
Stop complaining people, your purchases are holding or exceeding the premium you paid.
Yeah, i don't understand the complaint...other than maybe they think they could have bought more to flip
The complaints are likely from people who got shut out on the first day. Because you are right -- other than them, and maybe people who sold for small profits thinking the price won't hold with a mintage of 17.5K, no one else has anything to complain about.
I'm about to complain about conceding how bad my prediction was without knowing they at least momentarily cut the mintage in half. Kind of annoying, since I've been saying all along the mintage should have been the same 12.5K as the American Liberty high relief coins.
If they went all the way down to 10K without telling anyone, that's kind of BS, since that would have been relevant to people who took a pass at 17.5K but would have been interested at 10K.
It's actually not BS. It's only a problem for those who conflate and assume that the US mint will produce to the full limit.
Not being transparent about whether the remaining 7.5K is going to be released is also BS. If they keep playing games, they are going to eventually kill the Golden Goose. And, with it, their ability to sell tens of thousands of ounces of precious metals at multiples of their spot price.
Agreed, they should say what their plans are here.
Well, yeah! What's the point of announcing a maximum mintage they have no intention of producing, regardless of demand?
I think someone with a devious mind, working at the mint, does this deliberately just to read your forum posts about it.
The mint is at liberty to strike 25,000 more silver medals at any time. Contrary statements from the mint are little more than hot air. Whomever is at the helm is blindfolded.
Probably. But, announcing a maximum mintage and not producing to it, if demand warrants, is disingenuous. Flat out saying they won't make the additional 25K, and then making them anyway is something else entirely.
It's affirmatively lying, plain and simple. That would be taking it to a whole new level.
Which isn't to say it can't happen, because something has to give between them also affirmatively saying they made 17.5K gold, and then changing the product limit to 10K. Either the statement to Coin World that they minted 17.5K wasn't true, or 7.5K are now sitting in a warehouse waiting to hit the market in one form or another, since the "Product Limit" for the standalone coin is now 10K. Whatever they are doing, it isn't going to end well for them.
Once upon a time, the Perth Mint did something similar. They had a very popular 3 coin proof Lunar set, with a product limit of 1,000 and a 2 ounce coin that could only be obtained in the set. It was an instant sell out every year.
Then they got greedy, and decided to capitalize on the demand by making an additional 1K 2 ounce coins available by subscription, without telling people ahead of time what they would be doing. Like the US Mint now, they distinguished "mintage" from "product limit."
Disgusted a lot of people paying significant premiums to melt for limited edition products. Treating customers with disrespect, because you are a government agency that can do what you want, isn't really that smart when dealing with relatively high priced discretionary items.
Today, you can buy as many 3 coin sets or 2 ounce subscriptions form the Perth Mint as you want, because people got annoyed, the mint lost credibility, and it turns out collectors can actually lead happy and fulfilling lives without Perth Mint proof Lunar coins. Based on the sales of lots of current US Mint products, this reality is not limited to Australia.
I'm sure you'll say it is "different" but it's not that uncommon for them to not produce the full mintage. It's unusual for items under 100,000 but not unheard of even then.
@fathom said:
We paid a premium, now we will see if cutting the production will hold values. I think it will. If that is the intent then I am all for that, and it should spark interest on future products knowing that the premium is justified.
Stop complaining people, your purchases are holding or exceeding the premium you paid.
Yeah, i don't understand the complaint...other than maybe they think they could have bought more to flip
The complaints are likely from people who got shut out on the first day. Because you are right -- other than them, and maybe people who sold for small profits thinking the price won't hold with a mintage of 17.5K, no one else has anything to complain about.
I'm about to complain about conceding how bad my prediction was without knowing they at least momentarily cut the mintage in half. Kind of annoying, since I've been saying all along the mintage should have been the same 12.5K as the American Liberty high relief coins.
If they went all the way down to 10K without telling anyone, that's kind of BS, since that would have been relevant to people who took a pass at 17.5K but would have been interested at 10K.
It's actually not BS. It's only a problem for those who conflate and assume that the US mint will produce to the full limit.
Not being transparent about whether the remaining 7.5K is going to be released is also BS. If they keep playing games, they are going to eventually kill the Golden Goose. And, with it, their ability to sell tens of thousands of ounces of precious metals at multiples of their spot price.
Agreed, they should say what their plans are here.
Well, yeah! What's the point of announcing a maximum mintage they have no intention of producing, regardless of demand?
I think someone with a devious mind, working at the mint, does this deliberately just to read your forum posts about it.
The mint is at liberty to strike 25,000 more silver medals at any time. Contrary statements from the mint are little more than hot air. Whomever is at the helm is blindfolded.
Probably. But, announcing a maximum mintage and not producing to it, if demand warrants, is disingenuous. Flat out saying they won't make the additional 25K, and then making them anyway is something else entirely.
It's affirmatively lying, plain and simple. That would be taking it to a whole new level.
Which isn't to say it can't happen, because something has to give between them also affirmatively saying they made 17.5K gold, and then changing the product limit to 10K. Either the statement to Coin World that they minted 17.5K wasn't true, or 7.5K are now sitting in a warehouse waiting to hit the market in one form or another, since the "Product Limit" for the standalone coin is now 10K. Whatever they are doing, it isn't going to end well for them.
Once upon a time, the Perth Mint did something similar. They had a very popular 3 coin proof Lunar set, with a product limit of 1,000 and a 2 ounce coin that could only be obtained in the set. It was an instant sell out every year.
Then they got greedy, and decided to capitalize on the demand by making an additional 1K 2 ounce coins available by subscription, without telling people ahead of time what they would be doing. Like the US Mint now, they distinguished "mintage" from "product limit."
Disgusted a lot of people paying significant premiums to melt for limited edition products. Treating customers with disrespect, because you are a government agency that can do what you want, isn't really that smart when dealing with relatively high priced discretionary items.
Today, you can buy as many 3 coin sets or 2 ounce subscriptions form the Perth Mint as you want, because people got annoyed, the mint lost credibility, and it turns out collectors can actually lead happy and fulfilling lives without Perth Mint proof Lunar coins. Based on the sales of lots of current US Mint products, this reality is not limited to Australia.
I'm sure you'll say it is "different" but it's not that uncommon for them to not produce the full mintage. It's unusual for items under 100,000 but not unheard of even then.
I understand, and, no it's not "different" if there is no demand for the full mintage. That's normal. What's not normal is announcing a mintage, having whatever they made below that mintage sell out in less than a week, and then arbitrarily, for no apparent reason, refuse to make more.
The lottery was "different," and it was very disingenuous of them to announce 75K, only produce 50K, fully seed the 50K with winning lottery tickets, and not tell anyone what they did until weeks after the fact. And now, whatever is going on with the gold.
All I'm saying is that if they keep this up, no one is going to take anything they announce at face value, and plenty of people will just become annoyed to the point of tuning them and their offerings out and moving on to something else. Equally puzzling is how Coin World just repeats whatever they say without question, and without follow-up when what they say makes no sense.
Comments
ahahaha that's beautiful, after all that arguing, what a hill to die on, and I didn't even get it, hilarious
.
Again, of course. The mintage turns out to have been 2/3 of what was announced. Of course they are going to do better than anything anyone would have predicted with a 50% higher mintage.
And yes, it is hard to say. You are correct that I don't think they would have sold more than 50K without a lottery. Apparently they weren't sure they could sell more than that WITH the lottery!
That said, my $70 prediction was based on 75K, not 50K. Raw coins are currently steady at $225. Definitely higher than I would have predicted, so I guess I can admit that.
Beyond that, I don't know what to say, because all of this is unprecedented and unforeseeable. The lottery to move the 75K. Choosing not to even try to move the 75K. No announcing that until a month later. Etc.
All bets are off for me, because I couldn't see any of that. Same with the gold now.
Everything I am saying is based on 230 privys, 17,500 regular coins, no lottery, etc. If they just seed the 17,500 with privys, that will change my thoughts. Same if the 230 becomes 2300. Or if the 17,500 becomes 7,500. Or if they drop the premium by $500.
I am making predictions based on what they are announcing. There is plenty of room for disagreement, apparently, even if they do what they say they are going to do.
Beating me up because they pull things out of thin air, and I turn out to be wrong as a result, is kind of pointless. Unless it makes certain people feel good.
Because I certainly don't feel bad about taking what a US Government agency says at face value. And I will continue to do so. And not feel bad if they don't follow through, and my predictions don't pan out as a result.
Aren't you answering your own question regarding where all the medals are? 😀
If dealers were holding inventory off the market waiting for Mint confirmation that the mintage would be 1/3 less than initially announced, that would be the smart move, and would also explain why you aren't seeing them for sale. Yet.
As far as prices dropping, 70s, 69s, raw, that will depend on just how many have been held off the market, and whether there is greater demand for them than otherwise with the lower announced mintage when they do hit the market. I actually have no opinion now, but could make an argument that they either go up or down from here, given that it's a one-off with a final mintage of 50K.
When did they get it? They've been entering mine about 2 days after receipt lately. I sent mine in the day after I got it and I already have mine back and graded - Modern Economy Service.
You seem to be missing the key words.
They didn't announce a mintage of 75k. The announced a LIMIT of 75k. You ASSumed them to be the same but they are not.
http://ProofCollection.Net
perfection!
(does that barcode scan?)
Yes. A HUGE ASSumption. Because they NEVER mint to the limit when the demand is there. This would have been the first time.
And they always create a lottery to sell 2/3 of a mintage limit. My bad. I missed the key words. 🤣🤣
What's the point of announcing a mintage LIMIT if it doesn't mean anything, and they could end up only making and selling a fraction of the limit, regardless of demand?
Why not just say nothing, and only tell us through sales reports and Unavailable notices on the website, after the fact, what they are minting and making available for sale? That way there would be no room for bad ASSumptions?
Maybe because this is the first time, EVER, that they killed a product short of the mintage limit when there was demand, and no apparent reason, such as supply chain issues, that they could not mint to the limit?
This time, for whatever reason, they chose to make 50K when they announced a limit of 75K, seeded that 50K with the 1794 privys without announcing THAT ahead of time, and then unilaterally chose to go with that, without announcing anything until a month later.
And then, only in response to a written inquiry. Leading to an unjustified ASSumption. Yes, my bad. What was I thinking? 🤣🤣
Not on my iPhone.
Edited to add: just noticed you can scan barcode in the app.
Less than 2 hours to go! I'm glad we have people on the ground in Baltimore to report. Photos of the US Mint booth in Baltimore would be greatly appreciated!
I've seen a photo this am. 60+ people in line right now.
@NJCoin This time, for whatever reason, they chose to make 50K when they announced a limit of 75K, seeded that 50K with the 1794 privys without announcing THAT ahead of time, and then unilaterally chose to go with that, without announcing anything until a month later.
Did you ever think the Mint or their distributor(s) made a mistake and included all the privys in the 50,000 instead of holding back 1/3. Believe the coins with privys would have been minted first and that obv die retired. Somebody made a mistake and couldn't count. So that even after sales were good on Day 1 and demand grew in the market, they decided they couldn't mint the last 25,000 without any privys to distribute.
If you guys are right maybe they will still release the 25k. Says not available, does not say sold out
Got my FH Gold dollar. Got right in at 9:00 PT no wait. Done in 20 seconds.
I wonder how many privies will end up sitting in original Mint boxes, held by ordinary but oblivious collectors, not realizing they are worth considerable market premiums.
They would have to do it in a different offering because the product limit is 50k even though the mintage limit is 75k.
Nope. Of course, anything is possible, but that would be a pretty big mistake. And pretty difficult to make, IMHO.
They do this for a living. Confusing 50K with 75K would be pretty inconceivable. Hopefully, someday, Coin World will get to the bottom of what actually happened, and report it to the world. But I'm not holding my breath.
...the investigative journalists of Coin World haha oh man
Lol. I'm not sure why anyone really cares what the details are.
2 most recent Ebay sales today for raw
Maybe because, for some at least, there is real money involved.
As you point out all the time, at the end of the day these are all nothing more than pretty trinkets whose intrinsic value is tied to the price of the precious metals they contain.
Any additional value is conferred upon them by collectors. Not by dealers, and not even by the Mint itself.
As a result, how 75K became 50K, and how dealers got their hands on more privys with a 50K mintage than they would have had the Mint not changed things up at the last minute might be important to the people who are counted on to continue playing along.
Jerk them around enough times, and the Mint will be competing with the now defunct the Franklin Mint for collectors' attention and dollars. That's why details matter.
Who decided what, and why? We'll likely never be told, but that doesn't mean it's not something a leading industry publication shouldn't be pursuing it. It's a small thing called accountability.
Especially with respect to a federal agency ultimately accountable to taxpayers. That's why it's important. At least to me. Others can obviously speak for themselves.
If the Mint takes the position that it can simply do whatever it wants, with no transparency or accountability to its customer base, particularly for numismatic products, it will ultimately find itself in the exact same position as many other organizations selling discretionary consumer products who take their customers and market for granted. Diminished or gone.
Still don't care about the details. They only made 50k. Meh. Does it matter of they were out of blanks or out of boxes or just didn't think they could sell 75k? Not to me.
Yes, it matters. It matters, not that they ran out of anything, or thought they couldn't sell any amount.
It matters that they sprinkled 1794 privys among 50K, knowing that they weren't going to be making or selling the other 25K. Certainly not with privys sprinkled in.
They then distributed around 10K to early buyers. Not 5K, 10% of 50K. Not 7.5K, 10% of 75K. 10K, 20% of the 50K they seeded with privys.
The missing 25K came entirely from what would have been a public distribution. ABPP dealers won. Everyone else lost. It is worthy of an explanation.
ABPP could have been cut back. It was not. If anything, it was increased.
Deserves an explanation. Regardless of whether it was blanks (doubtful), packaging (doubtful), or, in hindsight, the Mint's likely solution to a potential non privy return problem by placing a disproportionate share in dealer hands, and then propping up secondary market value by cutting back supply.
If that is indeed what happened, the right way to have handled that would have been to cut ABPP back to 5K, and make 45K available to the rest of us. That didn't happen.
We deserve to know why, and who made the call. The privys were an instant $3-5K windfall to the lucky lottery winners.
Except anyone able to buy a box of 100 was a guaranteed winner, with no element of chance. 1794 spread across 50K instead of 75K meant an extra $3-5K in every box for a dealer, at the expense of retail buyers who didn't get to play after they sold out far earlier than would have been the case had the additional 25K been made available.
I deserve to know why, even if you don't care.
Could it be a little,,,,,
It pains me to admit it, since my instinct has always been to give those guys the benefit of the doubt, but I really think you and @HATTRICK are on to something here. Which is why I think we'll never get a straight answer.
The payback will come when the public starts to question everything they say, followed by tuning them out and losing interest in future offerings like this. That didn't happen this time with the gold, but if they keep it up, they will end up killing the proverbial Golden Goose. Then they'll be sorry they messed around like this, for the benefit of the Big Blue are the expense of the end customers.
The mint could care less about collectors. Their job would be a lot easier if they didn't have to deal with collectors at all.
The purpose of the United States Mint is to produce coins for trade and commerce. I didn't know they need to make a profit.
True enough. But, if they really felt that way, we'd all be pulling coins out of circulation.
Or not collecting moderns at all. Because, if we were really such a nuisance and time sink, they would not run a numismatic program for us.
It's true that they seemingly care a lot less about us than about the Big Boys. But the industry is real, and generates a ton of money for the GCs, SBs and HAs of the world. And the ABPP dealers. And, of course, the Mint.
Needless to say, without collectors, they'd all have to find something else to do while the Mint went back to wasting taxpayer money producing nickels and cents. The Mint is an important part of the numismatic ecosystem.
They know it, and, unfortunately for the rest of us, seem to cater to its largest members rather than its ultimately most important ones.
Reminds me of the quote, "If it weren't for all of these customers, I could get my work done!"
Well they do work for "us" and they should operate transparently. In theory.
http://ProofCollection.Net
Is it that everyone is hunting the gold in the am and not seeing these have been available the last two mornings. Have been able to place in bag but no soap. Tired of the bots.
Not everyone. Had mine in bag yesterday but still couldn't process fast enough this morning. Still in bag🙄
So the Mint revealed finally that they'd only produced a little more than half the mintage limit for the FG gold. Just seems so shady.
Actually, that's not what they revealed. They revealed that they are only selling 10,000 medals in this format. Whether the othere exist or not remains to be seen.
It also does not benefit them at all. If they had announced 10k product limit, it would have likely made these even more popular. Selling fewer didn't benefit them at all. Exactly how does this lower mintage hurt you? The only way is if you would have bought at 10k mintage but not at 15k.
We paid a premium, now we will see if cutting the production will hold values. I think it will. If that is the intent then I am all for that, and it should spark interest on future products knowing that the premium is justified.
Stop complaining people, your purchases are holding or exceeding the premium you paid.
Good point. Collectors should be happy with their purchase and all the flippers made some money too.
Now about what's going on at the U.S. Mint? This warrants a congressional inquiry.
Yeah, i don't understand the complaint...other than maybe they think they could have bought more to flip
The complaints are likely from people who got shut out on the first day. Because you are right -- other than them, and maybe people who sold for small profits thinking the price won't hold with a mintage of 17.5K, no one else has anything to complain about.
I'm about to complain about conceding how bad my prediction was without knowing they at least momentarily cut the mintage in half. Kind of annoying, since I've been saying all along the mintage should have been the same 12.5K as the American Liberty high relief coins.
If they went all the way down to 10K without telling anyone, that's kind of BS, since that would have been relevant to people who took a pass at 17.5K but would have been interested at 10K.
Not being transparent about whether the remaining 7.5K is going to be released is also BS. If they keep playing games, they are going to eventually kill the Golden Goose. And, with it, their ability to sell tens of thousands of ounces of precious metals at multiples of their spot price.
Is this true? I missed out because I screwed around putting in a new address on Day 1. Where is this information coming from?
NJCoin is right. I've already stopped several series because of these games. It's just not worth it.
I knew it would happen.
The mint has lowered the silver medal Product Limit to 50,000.
https://usmint.gov/230th-anniversary-flowing-hair-silver-medal-24YH.html
Old news. Now, if the mintage limit gets lowered to 50,000, that WOULD be news!
It's actually not BS. It's only a problem for those who conflate and assume that the US mint will produce to the full limit.
Agreed, they should say what their plans are here.
http://ProofCollection.Net
Well, yeah! What's the point of announcing a maximum mintage they have no intention of producing, regardless of demand?
I think someone with a devious mind, working at the mint, does this deliberately just to read your forum posts about it.
My US Mint Commemorative Medal Set
You mean a masochist works at the Mint?
Probably a sadist.
My US Mint Commemorative Medal Set
Perhaps. It's still the very definition of opacity. And, it is the height of gaslighting to accuse anyone of "conflating and assuming" by believing that an announced maximum mintage is the very amount that will be produced, assuming the Mint can sell them.
People make purchase decisions based on subject, design, price and mintage. Announcing any one of those elements, and then changing it without disclosure, is simply not right.
Not producing the maximum because they cannot, or due to lack of demand, is one thing. Making an arbitrary decision not to is something else entirely.
And conflating the two is gaslighting anyone who takes what the Mint announces at face value. As I said before, if the Mint keeps doing this, at these prices, they are going to find more and more people looking for another outlet for their collecting dollars.
My GF picked up a 2024 230 Flowing Hair silver from the Mint, her first time buying anything from the Mint. She bought one the day of issue like myself as well, mine was normal with no privy of course. I told her the odds of the privy are pretty remote.
Anyways, she had let her Mint package sit unopened until this weekend, as she had forgotten about it for a few weeks. I'm like, well open it up and see what you got. None of us expected to see a privy, just a pretty medal. And so she did:
2024 230 silver with Privy! And with signed COA! The privy was like "wow", but then the signed COA was like "holy wow!" Holy crap what luck!
The mint is at liberty to strike 25,000 more silver medals at any time. Contrary statements from the mint are little more than hot air. Whomever is at the helm is blindfolded.
No, the guy who reads the forum is probably a masochist.
Probably. But, announcing a maximum mintage and not producing to it, if demand warrants, is disingenuous. Flat out saying they won't make the additional 25K, and then making them anyway is something else entirely.
It's affirmatively lying, plain and simple. That would be taking it to a whole new level.
Which isn't to say it can't happen, because something has to give between them also affirmatively saying they made 17.5K gold, and then changing the product limit to 10K. Either the statement to Coin World that they minted 17.5K wasn't true, or 7.5K are now sitting in a warehouse waiting to hit the market in one form or another, since the "Product Limit" for the standalone coin is now 10K. Whatever they are doing, it isn't going to end well for them.
Once upon a time, the Perth Mint did something similar. They had a very popular 3 coin proof Lunar set, with a product limit of 1,000 and a 2 ounce coin that could only be obtained in the set. It was an instant sell out every year.
Then they got greedy, and decided to capitalize on the demand by making an additional 1K 2 ounce coins available by subscription, without telling people ahead of time what they would be doing. Like the US Mint now, they distinguished "mintage" from "product limit."
Disgusted a lot of people paying significant premiums to melt for limited edition products. Treating customers with disrespect, because you are a government agency that can do what you want, isn't really that smart when dealing with relatively high priced discretionary items.
Today, you can buy as many 3 coin sets or 2 ounce subscriptions form the Perth Mint as you want, because people got annoyed, the mint lost credibility, and it turns out collectors can actually lead happy and fulfilling lives without Perth Mint proof Lunar coins. Based on the sales of lots of current US Mint products, this reality is not limited to Australia.
I'm sure you'll say it is "different" but it's not that uncommon for them to not produce the full mintage. It's unusual for items under 100,000 but not unheard of even then.
I understand, and, no it's not "different" if there is no demand for the full mintage. That's normal. What's not normal is announcing a mintage, having whatever they made below that mintage sell out in less than a week, and then arbitrarily, for no apparent reason, refuse to make more.
The lottery was "different," and it was very disingenuous of them to announce 75K, only produce 50K, fully seed the 50K with winning lottery tickets, and not tell anyone what they did until weeks after the fact. And now, whatever is going on with the gold.
All I'm saying is that if they keep this up, no one is going to take anything they announce at face value, and plenty of people will just become annoyed to the point of tuning them and their offerings out and moving on to something else. Equally puzzling is how Coin World just repeats whatever they say without question, and without follow-up when what they say makes no sense.