Will Henrietta Holsman Fore's departure from the Mint affect the current momentum at the Mint?

Longacre

I think that the current Mint Director, Fore, is doing a great job at the mint. It was recently announced that she is leaving the mint and taking a position at the State Department. During her tenure, I belive the mint got more efficient and offered some interesting coins. They have upped the timetable when mint issues get offered to the public, and I think it is great that they are using a different finish on mint sets. The mint has also been proactive in developing a new gold bullion coin that is more likely to be accepted world-wide, and their website is easy to use and efficient. It seems that Fore took her experience in private industry and applied it to efficiently run a large governmental organization (which is no easy feat, seeing that I deal with the IRS regularly and that govermental agency is not the most helpful in the world). Does anyone think that these recent changes at the mint were the result of Fore, and what impact do you think her departure will have on recent trends there?

cladking

Primarily Fore has been continuing recent mint policy. While she has brought her
own style and ways to the job, the one way in which she appears to differ most
from her predecessors is that she has sought public and collector input. This has
been a very refreshing change.

There have been numerous positive changes and the challenges are even changing.

Perhaps one of the greatest challenges now is to not create too many new circulat-
ing coin designs.

mhammerman

Yes, a refreshing renaissance for American coinage under Fore's direction. The proof issues are technically excellent in terms of production, we have a variety of very handsome coinage, a modern mint with modern web site (yeah, it goobered up a couple of months ago), and many subtle but collectively, important improvements.

I hope the new director doesn't try and "tweek" the existing program and put his/her spin on things. It would be very nice to see the mint just tighten up its current game and spend the next 5 years working on realizing the legacy that Fore has left for the U S Mint. It always seems to happen that a new director has new ideas...well, that would be a mistake to change the direction the mint is going IMO. The new director needs to realize the gift he has been given...a nice set up with nice programs, a willing congress, and surely the largest collector base in the history of coin collecting. I am quite pleased with the work of the mint.

Mark

Longacre:

I concur with your assessment of Ms. Fore--she did an excellent job. On the other hand, I thought Philip Diehl, the Mint Director for most of the 1990s, was terrible. One of my concerns about numismatics derives from watching the comic book and baseball card markets in which some of my kids once had a fleeting interest. Both markets had booms. But the producers essentially destroyed the booms by producing so many varieties and small "mintage" special issues that the kids lost interest and so the boom died. I worried that the mint under Mr. Diehl was headed in the same direction. A perfect example of this tendency are the gold Sac dollars that Mr. Diehl had produced and then orbited around the earth in a space shuttle. I thought this endeavor was a foolish waste of resources.

Mark