US Mint Product Pricing
Halfhunter06
Posts: 1,340 ✭✭✭
I went on the Mints online catalog today and saw that the Regular 2026 Mint Set will be 124 dollars. I am extremely confused over the incredible price rises. Does anyone out there understand the rationale?
Thanks!
0
Comments
My only guess is that the 2025 sets were selling for that in the secondary market. Otherwise, there's no obvious reason.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
there has been no rationale presented by the mint
There is no reason.
A price like that for glorified pocket change is ridiculous.
I really wish they would update the description , Still showing a Kennedy half and a Roosevelt dime ?
The reason is simple if one were to breakdown the Mint's balance sheet. The core sets, and in particular the Mint Sets have been money losers for many years. They've been subsidized via the money making products for years as well.
One might consider thanking the Mint for keeping the Mint sets so cheap for so many years prior to this year.
There's a new Sheriff in town (finally), who's treating the Mint more like a business as opposed to a form of Welfare.
The Mint sets and certain circulating coins have been evaluated, and continue to being dealt with moving forward.
My 2C.
I don't care for "the sheriff" and have not cared for him in recent years.
You say the mint is losing on money on this stuff. What are their expenses? Are those expensives high enough to justify charging $124 for less than $5 face value in business strike coins? I think not.
I'll buy my one over priced silver Proof set, to keep my collection from 1936 to date going, but I'm out after that.
The new Sheriff is Director Hollis, so I have no idea what you're talking about.
USM reports on net income vs net loss might shed some light on why I said what I said.
This is a mint set. From the quality of my recent sets, it looks like they grab a ballistic bag of circulation strike coins, use a shovel to scoop a bunch out and seal them into a pretty plastic bubble package and sell them at extreme markup. $124 is just ridiculous and way out of line. They make plenty of money selling the other items.
Have seen the markup in the secondary market and decided to take it. Flippers complaining the most about price because that is what they wanted to charge. Time to flip off. 😁
OUTRAGEOUS
Everyone is complaining, but the subscriptions are currently unavailable. So, like it or not, the Mint knows what they are doing.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
If anything arrives less than pristine it goes back or I might fly it by local shop if they want to cash me out of the dregs at cost.
All these various products and FOMO has me over subscribed, which I recognize is the only way to guarantee getting multiple 1776~2026 & all related goodies.
And I do not collect normal coins !
Haven't collected coins since I cashed out of my childhood Whitmans to fund error coin acquisitions in 1979.
Yes. the Mint is successfully abusing its monopoly power to create artificial rarities, and then pricing them accordingly.
Whether they "know what they are doing" is another matter entirely. I could argue they should be making some items, like annual coin sets, that are not premium priced and act as low priced entry points to the hobby.
I could also argue that they should get a Wharton MBA to run analyses at various price and reasonable expected sales volume combinations to find the one that maximizes revenue above marginal cost of production, if it's all about the Benjamins. But they appear to do neither, with someone sticking their finger in their mouth, and then in the air, before pulling pricing and quantities out of one of their other orifices.
Pricing seems very predatory now, with little opportunity for loyal collectors to avoid losing money in the long term. A lot of money, as price go ever higher.
And volumes are all over the place, with some things way over produced while others are inexplicably massively under produced. With pricing seemingly unrelated to volume. How else do you explain two proof ASEs released on the same day, with one having nearly 10x the maximum mintage of the other, and a whopping $2, or 1%, separating the two in terms of issue price?
The mint does not have a monopoly any more than Thomas Kinkade has a monopoly over Thomas Kinkade paintings, or Banksy with Banksy artwork. Multiple mints product coins not just in the US but worldwide. You are free to buy from any of them. Just because a specific mint is the only source of a particular coin does not make them a monopoly.
Things are often inexplicable and don't make sense when viewed from the outside without all of the facts. Often once you have the full picture - if you can ever get it - things usually make a lot more sense. But not always.
"Things are often inexplicable and don't make sense when viewed from the outside without all of the facts. Often once you have the full picture - if you can ever get it - things usually make a lot more sense. But not always."
Bingo.
The same can be said when one views things from within their own Bubble.
Actually, this is objectively false. The Mint has a monopoly on minting United States legal tender coinage. Period.
Answer to the OP: BECAUSE THEY CAN!
Micah Langford - https://www.oldglorycoinsandcurrency.com/
To be fair, you have no idea what kind of market analysis they run. You don't like the outcome of the analysis. That doesn't mean they didn't run one.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
I can see an opportunity here for a major coin dealership to produce a yearly mint set that's significantly less expensive than what the mint is charging. Each coin would be hand selected for quality and the packaging would be nice but not expensive or real fancy or bulky. These sets wouldn't appeal to investors, flippers, or speculators. However, they would appeal to coin collectors who actually collect coins. Thoughts?
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
Nope, there's no rationale. They're limiting the mintages in order to create an artificial scarcity, and on a product that has little intrinsic value. I've been buying mint sets since 1974, when the Mint charged $6.
Hopefully, not very many sell and they are worth something in 50+ years
Micah Langford - https://www.oldglorycoinsandcurrency.com/
Correct. I have no idea, since I am not consulted ahead of pricing and mintage determinations.
But the fact that their volumes are down on just about everything, and their precious metal pricing has no relation to secondary market trends, with respect to premiums not shrinking as intrinsic value rises (not in percentage terms, which you seem to favor for the sake of argument, but in absolute terms, which is what the market is based on), suggests that whatever analysis they might be doing is deeply flawed, given that they are clearly neither maximizing volume nor profit.
They are just raising prices. In line with, and even in excess of, world mints that do a fraction of their volume. There will be a reckoning.
A perfect example is the proof AGEs released last week. If they were priced correctly, given the tiny mintages and the special dual dating and privy, they would have sold out in 5 minutes. Instead, most of them are available today, none of them have hit their advertised maximum mintages, and will also be available this time next year.
They make a lot of money on what they sell, but could make a lot more money by selling more at more reasonable prices. I don't need a Wharton MBA, or a sophisticated, detailed analysis to see that. Maybe you do.
Demographics suggest the hobby is in secular decline anyway. What they are doing is only exacerbating it.
"Hot" items will sell as long as there is a flip. Trying to turn most things into "hot" items is only going to serve to drive casual collectors away. Which will in turn negatively impact the creation of new serious collectors. At the same time, many current serious collectors will be turned off by the pricing, and difficulty in obtaining "hot" items, and will find other outlets for their time and money.
The Franklin Mint also chased short term profits in favor of long term sustainability. When is the last time it had a "hot" new release?
It's meaningless then, because Picasso has a monopoly on producing Picassos. It's meaning less to apply the term to the production of unique items (vs commodities or commoditized goods).
Even though the coins we're talking about are technically legal tender they are numismatic. And there are plenty of mints that produce numismatic coins.
Yep, source it out of China, they could ship the sets in a sort of-PCGS holder all with the same cert number not to confuse newer collectors and pre graded MS71.
An EBay friendly approach.
I think the Mint believes there is value in selling a product directly from the presses to packaging.
It won't take a Wharton grad to figure out there is no great profit potential in these sets. So why try to low margin the price point in the hope of driving demand that will never be there.
Cover your cost of production/labor and packaging and generate margin.
Never thought I'd join the growing number, but I'm done with the United States mint. Obviously, Stacks & Bowers and those with deep pockets are their target audience.
This is the way. Capitalism at work!
In fact, I once had such a set that a non-collector gave me. Third party company plucked examples out of circulation and dropped into a plastic shell with a nice box. Total ripoff when mint sets were cheap, but might make sense now!