Did anyone else get the letter from the Mint to do a survey? I got one today and just completed it, for the most part I gave mediocre marks. My enhanced ASE set was nice as far as a coin goes, but that was about the only outstanding mark they received from me. I also left them with this little nugget as my comment, although I am sure I just typed that for my hands daily exercise as I doubt they will even notice or care. "I am sure this will be a HUGE complaint from many folks, but the special enhanced ASE Set for 2013 was disastrous as far as ordering and shipping. The product (coin itself) was excellent, but SEVERAL large online dealers had their coins ready for sale already graded by PCGS or NGC before even the first collector received theirs, despite several small collectors making their purchase early on the first day of sale. We as collectors are what, and whom, make this whole industry survive and thrive. Without the collector there is no one to sell these products to for either the mint, or the large retailers like ProvidentMetals, APMEX, ModernCoinMart, etc. Way too many folks have been disappointed over this incident and it is being talked about on many different online discussion boards. Its not good when your grass-roots are not happy and should give eye opening reason to look at your current policy and possible favoritism to the 'big guys' over the small time collectors. There have been several folks whom i have read and conversed with who STILL havent received their orders, even a few of them who ordered on the first day. I ordered on the third day of sale and had my coins by mid-July, where as again there were first day purchasers who as of 8/10/13 still do not have the coin in their hands. I would surmise that its a pretty big deal when someone like me is complaining even though I received my coins obviously out of order and before many others who were ahead of me, that is just not right and speaks VOLUMES to the organization of whoever is running these programs. So theres two major issues that need to be addressed. The first being the show of favoritism to large retailers just because they make a 10,000 coin purchase, either they were allowed to order before the release date, or they ordered on day one and all of their orders were shipped before any small orders, both of which are bad practices for a business. The second is the obvious jumbling of ordering and processing if my order was three days past initial sale date and their are still day one guys not receiving their orders. I sincerely hope that this does not fall upon deaf ears, as these recent practices are creating a nice commotion to Mint followers." I do feel better at least knowing that they sought my opinion so maybe they will listen and I hope a few others who may have received this letter respond accordingly.
I wouldn't worry about it. The new order management system that will be implemented in 2012 should take care of all of that. You know what I'm talking about, right? The system the Mint contracted to a BRITISH company to design.
Or they submitted a whole lot of smaller orders on the first day using a phone bank of employees so a very large number of the orders placed the first day came from these large dealer phone banks. That means a very large number of the first sets being shipped out will be to the big dealers. Not to mention that the big dealers also buy a lot of sets from other lucky early delivered collectors that bought multiple sets with the idea of "buy five sell four for a profit and my set is free." For these reasons new issues are rapidly concentrated in the hands of the big dealers. Oh, and if a big dealer gets in early and orders a LOT of sets and the sets are shipped in order, it is only right that his order be filled and shipped before later smaller orders. That's what first come first served means.
(This is a response to trey's question in Post #3.) No. However, in 2011, the Mint said it would be implemented in 2012. I was just being facetious. As many have said before, if we want the Mint to behave like a customer-friendly private corporation, we have to be willing to stop buying their products. Then, they will see we are serious. Until then, I would put the concept of a user-friendly Mint in the same closet as world peace and human equality. That is, don't spend too much time waiting for it to happen.
Hmm sounds good in theory, but then what about all of the little guys who purchased on the first day and STILL haven't seen their coins? Either way something is fishy, and I would know, I literally work around fish all day long. So remind me what the point would be for 'phone banks' of employees to order these sets? I distinctly remember there being no limits on orders placed as the coins were to be made to order quantities, so that doesn't make sense. Then your second point was that they did place multiple orders throughout the day (assuming they got through with all the little buyers dialing in) and then went through their orders and collectively shipped them to the same address while obviously still skipping over some who ordered on the first day? Yeah I'm gonna go with Occams Razor on this one and the simple answer is that the mint showed preferential treatment in some way, shape, or form and it hurt the very base that buys these products at the end. There is no denying that on ANY scenario you can throw out there for justifying why big dealers had graded coins for sale almost as soon as folks received there orders from the mint. Oh and as an aside. I ordered the 3rd day and received my coins before some 1st day buyers. Somebody screwed up somewhere, and I don't think it was the 'little collectors' signing up for the coin.
