If the US Mint was a real business, they would produce enough merchandise to meet the market.
DMWJR
Posts: 6,084 ✭✭✭✭✭
I freely admit that I don't know the answer to this question so I am not pointing at anyone that I know of, but who sets the mintage limits on these non-monetary US Mint special issues? I understand how it works for regular US coins and currency, but I don't know about all of these other mint issues.
You can follow the link below and see how the mint upped the production of proof sets when they felt there would be increased demand due to special events like 1976 and then the state quarter program. In those cases our government produced a product to meet collector interest and collected all the profit themselves. I'm all for our government doing things like this and can make money from people voluntarily spending their discretionary money on something. That is smart and good for the country.
So who controls the production numbers for baseball coins, gold Kennedys, etc. and is it based on projected collector demand or influenced by those who might make money in the secondary market? Seems like to me that if the mint was concerned about having a lot of product left over they would make short first runs, gauge the market and then make additional runs to continue to meet the demand. That's what other businesses do.
Link to Proof Set Mintage Figures
You can follow the link below and see how the mint upped the production of proof sets when they felt there would be increased demand due to special events like 1976 and then the state quarter program. In those cases our government produced a product to meet collector interest and collected all the profit themselves. I'm all for our government doing things like this and can make money from people voluntarily spending their discretionary money on something. That is smart and good for the country.
So who controls the production numbers for baseball coins, gold Kennedys, etc. and is it based on projected collector demand or influenced by those who might make money in the secondary market? Seems like to me that if the mint was concerned about having a lot of product left over they would make short first runs, gauge the market and then make additional runs to continue to meet the demand. That's what other businesses do.
Link to Proof Set Mintage Figures
Doug
0
Comments
As to other coin releases look to Canada and Perth. You'd be hard pressed to keep up with these mint products...and a lot poorer. Even these prolific mints have some production limited releases. Sometimes as low as 1,000 or 5,000 pieces. How would you like the US Mint to put out 1 kilo silver or gold "coins"?