2016 Mercury

Obviously I've been out of the loop since I took a couple year break from the hobby and CT. Can someone please explain to me what the "problem" is with these coins. I think they are quite lovely. I understand the Mercury doesn't have split bands on the reverse...which is dumb, but other than that what is the problem?

 

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From my standpoint, and that voiced by some other collectors, the problem was that no silver versions were issued. That apparently stemmed from the law ordering the coins.

For me, it was just a decision that those collecting dollars would be better spent elsewhere rather on the gold.

 

I see it the other way. I see for most issues that sales are over-inflated from the flippers and big sellers buying up large quantities. You may be right that may have been their thinking, but as we can see with the SLQ and WLH still being available that demand is really only there if sellers are actively making a secondary market with them.

There certainly have been a few issues here and there that probably would have sold out with single issue purchases but with the overwhelming majority of items being readily available everywhere on the secondary market to me it shows that flippers are driving a large part of their sales numbers. The other thing would be that the slabbed collectors and collectors building 70 sets wont really ever be a mint customer either way, its much easier for them to let someone else get the grading done.

I can understand not doing a mintage of 1k and leaving a bunch of money on the table for a strong secondary market, but if they destroy the secondary market entirely their sales will start to take a big hit. Even from a collector standpoint if you know basically everything will be cheaper on the secondary market since the mint destroyed it and can actually pick the one you want then why wouldn't you just wait for that?

 

Just one question: Will the major grading services offer a special "LATE RELEASE" slab label?

 

I believe they will if you suggest it. Something like that will probably be a "super-premium special label" and be an extra $20. The special labels are $15 but they'd probably need a little extra to print "late" instead of "early".
I went on a pretty admirable rant just a few days ago about TPG charging $15 to print a sentence on the label that said "early release" and how not only was that crazy to charge to print a sentence, the designation is meaningless. Then, just today, NGC sent out an email saying they see the error of their ways and will stop gouging people in several different ways. One of them is that "early release" labels will only be $10 instead of $15. "Special" labels will now only be $5 instead of $15. Now there is no longer a 5 coin minimum for any category. There was a lot more changes as well, all effective January 2cnd. https://www.ngccoin.com/news/article/5649/NGC-services-and-fees-changes/
And just when I was getting pretty fed up with them and discouraged about things.

 

Yeah, I went on ebay to see what the 69 & 70's were selling for and wondering if it would be worth the gamble to get one from the mint. The thing that complicates it is like you said, some unknown number are returns. That's not good at all. The article that I put a link to earlier tries to play it off as the 8,900 coins being from where the mint stopped selling so that they could reconcile the orders with the amount actually left on hand so that they don't inadvertently oversell coins they don't have. That's a little different than what the real story is :customer returned coins - although they did obliquely mention that. I wonder how many are really new surplus and how many out of the 8,900 are customer returns? I will have to research that and see how many were extra the day after they quit selling and then what the number rose to as people returned the coins. Maybe somebody knows the number off hand which will save me some time?

 

Makes-Me-Cringe-To-Think: The Home Shopping Network hawking "highly collectible" special-label slabs.

Hopefully these special labels are a passing fad that future collectors will view with amusement.

 

It is time for the New President to replace all these idiots from the US Mint and put some new people there.

Oh by the way this should be a quick sell out cause the mintage is ONLY 7800 now

 

I may be way off but I want to say sales dropped by 4-6k as returns rolled in.

I did find this, http://news.coinupdate.com/u-s-mint-sales-report-more-gold-mercury-dimes-left-to-sell/. That had sales dropping 2500 one week and then another almost 3k must have come back to have 7800 left when they only had a little over 5k left at the time of the first drop.

The other thing would be did the mint allow product exchanges for these? If so almost every last one of them is likely a return. It's possible some were returned just because people didn't want a finned one or they just couldn't flip it for a profit, but I really wouldn't have high hopes for the quality of this remaining group as far as modern gold standards go

 

LAST STRIKE!

 

I'll second that, I think you're right but we'll find out! I wonder if the US Mint ever denies a return? Just wondering?

 

As long as you're within their time frame I don't believe they ever deny one. Trying to get reimbursed for the shipping cost back though is a nightmare

 

So are y'all thinking that there's some heavily milk spotted dimes that are gonna be sold on the upcoming sale? I may take a gamble, I just don't know. I missed out on the dime but I bought one of the SLQ's nobody bought. lol

 

I believe it was 125,000, the quarter was 100,000 and the half dollar 70,000.

 

Everyone knows these are returns. The mint should restrike them on the same planchets but fix the quality issues. Then it would be a really hot item. They could charge double and it would sell out quickly.

 

I thought the Mercury Dime was sold out or unavailable after a flurry of buying on the first day, the first hour ??

Were they available sometime after that ?

 

Supposedly the mint suspended sales to "reconcile the inventory versus sales" when they first went on sale. Here's the article from back then when it happened. They are now selling the left over stock and the cancellations and the returns.
http://www.coinnews.net/2016/04/22/2016-mercury-dime-centennial-gold-coin-unavailable-for-now/

 

Yeah, but the first 110,000 customers that bought them the first time would have a legitimate gripe. Or at least a good many of them that got less than perfect coins.
But I see your point as well.

 

by the way, with a limited production what is the difference between a certified "first strike" (etc) label and one from later in production and *how* would they know if it was an early strike, versus the 100th, 1,000th or 100,000th one minted ?

 

I recall reading somewhere that early shipments are NOT necessarily the earliest-minted coins. In which case the special labels are, um, misleading? Or worse?

Maybe someone who knows for sure will chime in.