The US Mint saw a big sales decline in 2024
HalfDime
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I have been following mint sales for about 19 years, and the last big sales collapse for the US Mint happened in 2008, to where at the end of the year they announced the removal of about 300 products from future sales. 2008 gave us a year of modern iconic coins like the buffalo fractionals, the last of three years of gold eagle unc fractionals and platinum eagle fractionals. The mint at the time decided to go with almost all one ounce coins going forward, and that seemed a drastic change since the 1/10 ounce coins were very popular, always selling the most of any denomination or size.
Fast forward to today, and the 2024 collector coin sales numbers show a large decline of US Mint sales compared to prior years. How bad is it? Well, I am seeing sales that have dropped from about 30% up to 60% for most coins, and while so far they have only sold a fraction of 2023 comparable sales, the coins can remain up for sale for years if the mint wants, until inventories are depleted.
I have posted about the 2024 Harriet Tubman gold unc commemorative coin coming in at record low sales. The interesting thing about the commemorative program is sales have to end at the end of the year of issue, meaning that the collapse of sales is shown in the final mintages for the 2024 commemoratives, across all sizes, including both coin types (Tubman and Greatest Generation).
If the rest of the mint portfolio had this same limitation, we would have seen coins finish at lows nobody could have ever predicted.
The 2024 one ounce gold unc eagle coin only has sales of 2750 so far. The 2024 proof gold buffalo 1 ounce is only at 8,859. In a sign of how bad sales are, the 2024 1 ounce silver unc eagle still hasn't broken 100k yet, it is only at 93,253. The 2024 one ounce proof palladium is only at 3,431.
Compared to the 2008 sales decline, 2024 is nearly half the sales of 2008, It looks to be across all sales for mid to high end products, however, the mint has been raising prices on products, so overall revenues for the mint might actually be up. It is hard to predict, since gold prices going up make things seem OK on a revenue standpoint. It might even look like they have improved in a crazy sort of way.
I don't think that any changes are on the way due to any of this, except I will make a prediction about future coin sales. Since the mint normally strikes products to anticipated demand, the 2025 collector coins may be the ones that get struck to the much lower demand we saw throughout 2024. We will not know until the end of this year if I am right. It may be the mint strikes only 3000 1 ounce unc gold eagle coins this year. Or only 9,000 1 ounce proof gold buffalo coins. Even the Morgan and Peace dollar coins have seen sales decline by a lot. They may be struck in lower numbers as well.
These lower numbers may be the new normal, only time will tell. While it is bad for past issue prices, as falling demand means less collector interest in general. It could make for some great future issues that have record lows, and will go up in value as a result. This has happened in past years, such as 2008. Maybe history repeats itself again.
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Not surprised mint premiums severely overinflated, shrinking collector base, same old stale designs, high gold and gutter prices....Take your pick. RGDS!
The whole worlds off its rocker, buy Gold™.
BOOMIN!™
I tried buying some stuff yesterday. I logged in and it said my password was wrong. I went through the process to change my password that it accepted. I then tried logging in with my new password and the site said my password was wrong.
I guess government employees working from home do not care about sales or customer service, or they were getting ready for the Carter Memorial Day.
Not surprised.
I'm pretty sure the US Mint doesn't run the website. PFS Web does. "PFS Web holds a significant Indefinite Delivery Contract (IDC) with the United States Mint, valued at $573 million over a 10-year period from 2023 to 2033. This single-award IDC establishes PFS Web as the exclusive provider of the Mint's enterprise sales and marketing solution. Under this contract vehicle, PFS Web is responsible for delivering a fully integrated platform that includes e-commerce, order management, warehousing, customer service, and business intelligence capabilities to support the Mint's numismatic retail program."
https://govtribe.com/vendors/priority-fulfillment-services-inc-dot-pfs-web-3rtq4
The term "catch a falling knife" comes to mind.
Could be an opportunity but there is certainly danger.
Supply and demand. Demand is down due to high prices, therefore supply is cut back. It costs more money now to buy a 2024 Proof Set than a 1962 Proof Set costs on the open market, and that one (my birth year) has silver. I have cancelled all but three enrollments in the last several years. Life does on and sales go down.
I've been doing my part to help lower Mint sales.
This past year I cancelled all of my enrollments.
You can’t pin this one on me, I bought a gold and silver flowing hair from them, this year.
Thanks for the statistical info. Maybe the Mint should have a Crazy Eddie sale!
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The designs are not the issue here. I honestly think if the US Mint did more classic designs, it would do more to increase sales as those designs are reminiscent of an era of "real" coins. The new designs coming out of the US Mint are not doing much to inspire hope and that is a big issue here. There is a wrong way and a right way to do circulating design changes too. State Quarters found the right balance, but interest in that too waned over time.
Proof sets of many years have seen their values fall which I think is a part of the issue. There are also many different coin options available. It is not like years past where the only option you had were mint and proof sets. Maybe that is why the older sets mintages were so high.
Subject matter.is my guess. If the new issues depicted.more historic designs, sales would increase.
I would love to know just how much it would cost to buy one of each coin or set produced from the mint for each year. Too many offerings for too many years.
The seemingly endless run of gimmicks has turned me off-privy marks anyone? I pretty much capped off my gold commem set and gold eagle sets other than picking up a few on the secondary market for bullion stacking.
Good reporting. Thanks.
I dropped out of several Modern coin series about 5 years ago due to the rising costs and gimmicky varieties that the Mint decided to push. Focus isn't a bad thing.
I also find the Mint's new website formatting to be a real pain in the ass.
I knew it would happen.
I’ve been done with the Mint for a few years now. Uninteresting subject matter and escalating prices have turned me off. Wish I had stopped years ago. So many proof set, uncirculated mint sets, commemoratives, silver eagles from the beginning, special gold editions sets. My new focus is graded classic series and type coins. That’s a whole new world.
Agree to agree...higher prices, clunky website, too much variety, cutting back on my purchases there as well-considering full on stop too.
Bought two coins from the Mint last year.
They should sell stickers.
Unoriginal and uninteresting coins at high prices? What more could anyone ask for?
Overpriced for the majority of collectors.
Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value. Zero. Voltaire. Ebay coinbowlllc
Yes, I should have added that the redesign of the mint website has probably had an impact on sales as well. It is hard to find some products now, and you have to click many times to find certain products that are buried deep in the site.
I think 2025 may be the start of real low mintage 1 ounce coins.
The decline will get worse by their plan of increasing clad coin prices.
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I wonder if the US Mint is fighting a losing battle. In society today, fewer and fewer people are using coins. Many individuals in their 20s and 30s don't use physical currency or coins at all. To them, the idea of owning a coin might seem completely irrelevant.
It would be interesting to see some comparative statistics. I wonder if sales patterns at the US Mint parallel those, say, at the British and French mints? If so, that would argue in favor of some broader dynamic, not just the types of the coins that the US Mint has chosen to offer.
Likewise, it would interesting to see US Mint sales categorized by age of buyer. This data might not exist, but again, it could reveal a broader dynamic at play.
They clearly do not care. Their new model seems to be to price like a world mint, where the demand and sales are traditionally a fraction of that of the US Mint, and let sales be whatever they turn out to be.
If they ran it more intelligently, they'd figure out how to maximize profit while producing at a level that supports value in the secondary market, ensuring continuing demand. Which would mean significantly lower premiums to the variable cost of production, without taking into account bloated federal government fixed costs and overhead that would exist even if numismatic sales were reduced to zero.
But they don't do that. Instead, they price at a level that ensures reduced demand. On top of that, they over produce items like the Morgan and Peace Dollars while under producing items like the recently Flowing Hair gold and silver product.
It must be nice to not have to worry about having to answer to anyone, and just basically doing whatever you want.
Hi group... not that my opinion matters, as I am very new here with no value in my collection/ hoard/ accumulation... but I will tell you, this thread exactly explains why I collect what I do... the premiums do not make me feel good about the investment-- though to avoid being a hypocrite, I am enrolled in AWQ and Innovation.. that said, I would rather collect the junk and amass my Hoard with the 8yr old and have a story for literally every coin we have... be it a box of pennies w a business card, the car wash finds, whatever... I simply am having a tough time paying the premium + ship from the Mint... sucks though as I love the wrappers and the fact they're from where the Country makes it's coins... Have a great day y'all.... -- Mike