Message from Mint Director

https://www.usmint.gov/news/press-releases/message-from-united-states-mint-director-david-ryder

Linked from usmint.gov's home page.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

He's lying.....he wasn't short a few hundred or few thousand or tens of thousands on the coins in question...he was short HUNDREDS of thousands.

 

The solution to the problem is an obvious one. Pre-registration with a random lottery. When a new product is announced with a tight mintage limit, open up a pre-registration 2 weeks ahead of launch date. Then 2 days prior to launch, send an announcement to those who were randomly selected that they will be able to purchase that specific item on launch day. The selected individual will be given a Code that will need to be entered upon checkout. The code will only work if the name and shipping address match the pre-registration user information. The code will be active for two weeks after launch date. If the code is not used in that time, it will be deactivated and a new code created and randomly distributed to an individual that did not receive a code in the first round. You can also notify the US Mint that you have changed your mind about purchasing the item and surrender your code early. This would prevent the mad rush at 12:00 noon on launch day. Collectors will still get their equal chance to at purchasing the product as the flippers. Bots will be useless and won't bog down the site.

To me this would be a much fairer way of distributing lower mintage high demand items. Even if they sped up the Mint's website to handle the higher traffic, it would only mean that the product would sell out faster, creating a greater rush. This system or something similar would eliminate that altogether. Household limits would be maintained and confirmation of those addresses would be able to be done prior to the distribution of the purchase codes.

 

It wouldn't change anything. The people that didn't get it would still have the same complaints and you would just start conspiracy theories that they're giving the numbers to dealers/insiders etc.

No matter what they do there will be a lot of complaints

 

I agree.. But you won't see the threads about getting banned from the Mint or how the stupid website kept crashing so they missed out. People will always have something to complain about. If they didn't, they'd complain about that too...

 

So true, no matter what people will complain. I always find it odd how many people claim to not want products yet complain about the process too.

I kind of like the chaos a little bit. It's frustrating for the site to crash, but at least you feel like you had a real shot and if you did actually get one it's really exciting. I feel like a lottery would take a lot of excitement out of it

 

Yes, he is a liar.

He should know that a product that celebrates the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower voyage would generate more demand than a little over 4,800 units. In 1920 there were 152,112 Pilgrim Tercentenary half dollars sold. They even sold an additional 20,000 pieces in 1921. The U.S. population for lower then than it now. If his “market research team” told him that less than 5,000 gold sets and fewer than 15,000 silver sets would be enough, they are dumber than a bag of hammers. They set this up to cause a frenzy so that they could sell out in short order, and give profits to those who got the sets.

The mintage of 1,945 on the World War II thing was an even bigger farce. Only a fool would think that mintage would be enough to satisfy the demand.

He thinks he’s turning on the speculators, which might be true. Conversely, he’s turning off a lot of collectors. He’s raised the price of the silver Proof sets from about $60 to over $100. He’s raised the price of mint medals to over $150. At that price, he may as well shut down the operation because very few people are going to buy them at that level.

The mint has become “collector hostile” under his leadership. But it doesn’t matter to him. He’s a career bureaucrat who could care less about the core of his business, which in the long run is the collector.

 

Yeah, I was able to get the 2019-S Reverse Enhanced Proof Silver Eagle last year. My brother and my mom both tried and were not able to get one. You do get a feeling of satisfaction of "Making it through" the process.

 

He's running the mint like the rest of the major world mints do. Go look at the Royal mint prices, look at France, Australia and so on. Prices are still cheaper than many other mints

 

Exactly you get a rush and makes the next couple days a lot better waiting for it. I'd rather keep that since a lottery would involve even more luck than trying over and over

 

IMHO, the best approach would be unlimited mintage figures.

Announce an offering x months before release. Enough time to get ducks in a row. Show off the design, generate interest from collectors, etc. Have everyone pay ahead of time. Then, on day of release mint the coins ordered. Maybe an over run of 10%? Release the mintage figures after all coins are sold. Everyone that wants one, gets one. Speculators? Bah, they just ruin the hobby. The mint isn't there so speculators can make money. Want to have some sort of buzz? Have a random addition, some people like a signed CoA I guess, or maybe a discount code for next purchase, I dunno if an addition is necessary.

 

In a word...spin. But, it is interesting that there was enough loud complaining that the Director of the Mint had to provide a public reply through the website. So, someone did listen.

The Mint's website problems are not new and have increased with these ridiculously low mintage coin issues. The Mint is also tone deaf to the collector community with small mintages being made available for very popular coin series. The ASE is an extremely popular coin for both collectors and bullion buyers. Low mintages create artificial scarcity and inflated prices, not to mention bitter disappointments as well as collector joy.

 

Many collectors want and like these low mintage rarities. Everyone else wants it for the same reason. If you make it everyone can get it nothing special many (including many complaining) lose interest and complain.

There's a divide in the community (as there always is about basically anything) and many have been asking for products like these for a long time.

 

If you are a collector, you will be happier if you avoid the modern U.S. Mint and collect the older material where the Mint does not control the market. They play games constantly and are more concerned with pleasing flippers than collectors.

I repeat. The director of the mint is dishonest and has no interest in the collector point of view. He should resign or assign the responsibility for setting collector coin politics to someone who cares.

 

Honest question, why spend so much time trying to trash the mint? If you dont want to collect it don't, no one is forcing you too. Why post in so many threads being about things you say you don't collect anymore?

 

From my perspective, the astronomical prices realized on the secondary market won't remain over time. I'll give two prime examples. The 1999 Silver Proof set, once 200 or more, currently not much over issue. The 2012 Silver Proof, again, once over 200- still listed but not selling. Few collectors are paying around 150, so the price is and will continue to drop. Same thing with the ASE's and any other mint product over time.

 

I don't know if he is dishonest or not, but he is not very good at math. He stated 390,000 were trying to log in, more than triple expected. That means they thought 130,000 would log on to try to get the 75,000 pieces! That means they expected an immediate sell out or he made an honest math mistake.

 

Agree 100%, although I don't follow this stuff that much. The mint's job isn't to create rarities, appease big players, etc. Show the design, do the hype, take the orders, then mint what you need. It's the US Mint, not beanie babies.

 

In a perverse sort of way, I understand what The Mint is doing: creating the illusion of A Coin Lottery where you can double or triple your $$$.

Generates interest for all the common stuff they look to pawn off on the suckers, er, customers of The Mint.

If those folks somehow get into quality numismatics or bullion, I guess it's not a bad thing though I wonder how many people will make the jump from Mint dreck to quality coins and bullion.

 

These are ALL excellent suggestions.