I was on coinflation earlier and noticed they had a link to a story about the Mint raising prices yet again. Some of these increases are ridiculous! Here's a link to the full story: http://mintnewsblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/2011-us-mint-product-prices.html
Are you really surprised, especially with the price of silver and gold increasing the past couple of months?
How does gold and silver have anything to do with their quarters, halves, presidential dollars, medals, etc...? I realize their gold/silver product prices would go up, but not so much on their other stuff. I totally agree with this quote from the article: "At a time when the US Mint halted a bullion program due to excessive premiums charged by primary distributors, increasing their own product prices by large percentages with little justification comes across as brazen and inappropriate."
They seem to be pricing themselves out of some people's budgets. I for one will not be making my usual three orders this year at those prices. Most of those already went up only two years ago. Very sad...
I cancelled my subscriptions...I can wait for more reasonable prices in the secondary market. I believe that the Silver proof quarters are priced fairly IF silver were at $42/0z and the Silver Proof Sets would need silver above $50. I'll wait, and let others pay the Mint's premium.
+1 After the 2010 Proof quality issues and the erroneous email sent out from the Mint to subscribers I cancelled all of my Mint subscriptions as well. What's bound to be a better route: buy newly graded US Mint products that are offered for sale early on by dealers in the secondary market selling graded products at the grades you want in the first place. Avoid those TPG fees of submitting to grading yourself, avoid the quality control issues rampant with the Mint and if personally necessary buy empty OGP from coin shows or dealers or on eBay. Keep the graded coins in the TPG slab or crack them out and reassemble an OGP if that's your thing. The value of this trouble may be nominally different from what you'd get with a hit-or-miss order direct from the Mint. Also avoid having to deal with the Pitney Bowles Govt Services (Fullfillment Center) FedEx to USPS hand-off delivery non-sense when taking delivery, risk of receiving damaged merchandise, or not receiving the right items at all, and any problems with returns/exchanges and the 7-day Mint return policy therein. The Mint raises prices but will they raise the bar on quality controls and customer service or are these price hikes in accord with paying for the new brand identity they recently unveiled?
Yep, I'm sad to agree. I have bought the usual three products (mint, clad proof, silver proof) since 1998, but it's digging too much into my causual collecting budget. Sorry, Mint, I'm out!
I'm glad I no longer purchase from the mint. They don't deserve my business. I wonder how many times they'll pre-apologize for their online store system not being able to handle demand (though that wont likely be an issue this year with these prices). You'd think with all the price gouging they do, that they'd at least invest some of those profits into making sure their system is capable of taking customer orders.
I certainly would like the mint to read the comments here. The feelings seem to be mutual. The prices on items I usually purchase are going up about 20%. My wages, on the other hand have not. Good-bye loyal customers!
I only buy a few things from them, like the commems and the silver ATB sets. Some of the prices aren't changing at all. Buying them on the secondary market will just cost more. Truth is, I see the price of everything around me going up.
$14 more dollars on a bag of quarters?! I guess they're sweetening their new, highly priced ATB unc sets.
