Silver Eagle Talk

I have some questions about this series, as I have been under a rock

1. When did the mint outsource their sales of eagles to coin dealers?

2. If I understand correctly the W mint marks eagles, do not have a mint mark?

3. The W mint mark collector coins have low mintages but are not worth more than their similarly graded counterparts?

If i'm not mistaken a 2007 w with a mintage of 621,333 is worth less than a 1996 ASE with a mintage of 3.6 million. I apologize if this has been discussed, but I'm lost on this series.

4.Have all these varietys and outsourcing 30 to 40 million eagles a year production help or hurt it?

5. Where the heck have all the eagles gone? I have been to numerous coin shops and they are all sold out.

 

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Let's see if I can answer some of your questions for you. If I happen to make a mistake, someone please chime in and correct me.

1. Since the Uncirculated Eagle was always considered a bullion coin, the Mint wanted to be sure to achieve maximum circulation. In keeping with that idea, they sold them in "Green Monster" boxes to dealers ONLY. One of the requirements to be an eligible dealer was (don't know if it is still true) that they had to be able to sell one million ounces per year.

2. I've heard more than one explanation for this, and to be honest, I don't really know which is true. I tend to believe that the UNC Eagles have always been produced at the West Point Mint. There has been speculation that the Mint did not want this information known to the general public because the West Point Mint held considerable stores of gold & silver bullion, and there were concerns about security.

3. Keep in mind that 2007 was the second year of production of the burnished eagle with the W mintmark, and this coin was sold directly to the public. The regular uncirculated Eagle was still sold through the dealer network, so I can only speculate that the burnished Eagle negatively affected the value of the regular Eagle.

4. The uncirculated Eagles have always been distributed through the (participating) dealer network, so I don't think we can assume that this previously had a negative impact on values. Perhaps the introduction of the (burnished) West Point series has affected the values of the regular series. Who knows?

5. Since silver is under $20/oz. it seems that the apparent scarcity is indicative of heavy buying by collectors AND PM SPECULATORS. It's also possible that coin dealers are buying and hoarding them in anticipation that the price of silver will rise. Also, if you were a dealer and you bought Eagles when silver was $35-40/oz. would you be willing to sell them at that great a loss?

Chris

 

I'm no expert, but, I'll give you my take. The 2006W, 2007W and 2008W all have the W mintmarks and come in a box. The 1996 could be sitting in monster boxes of hoarders and not as readily available as the Burnished 2007-W, which came in a box, capsule and with cert. Being sold mainly to target collectors, die hard bullion addicts and collectors could be ignoring it. I also believe that the boxed proof eagles are less popular than regular MS ASE's. It doesn't make sense for dealers to keep heavy stock in bullion when it is tanking and on a downward trend. This could explain availability. Some dealers could be holding back and waiting for a higher price. Some could have already taken substantial losses on their previous overpriced orders. Either way, I'm not surprised that the availability and stock is limited. Wouldn't want to have monster boxes on hand, if their price will drop 25% with a $15/oz price of silver (already being predicted by Moody's).

 

In the past, could you buy buillion versions from the mint directly?

Do you think not Having a actual W on the coin prevents it from having nuismatic valur?

 

I'm not so sure about this part because just few weeks ago I watched on Discovery Channel a documentary called something like "Secrets of the US Mint" which, if I remember correctly, was released in 2009. One of the segments (the last I think) was about the West Point Mint and specifically that all gold coins were minted there and the extremes they went through to determine that no gold walked. I realize the original post was about ASEs but ...

 

Yep, those ASEs are cornfuzing.

But, all the answers can be found in Mercanti's book about the Eagles.

Get one, read it, and then, grasshopper, you will understand all.

 

Its mintage without the W is over 9 000 000. It will never reach the same value as the 1996.

 

the 2007 w has a mintage of 621,333 and you can still buy one for 40 bucks. what am i missing the 1996 has a mintage in the millions

 

As long as I have known ASE have been "outsourced" to the few big guys. I've even seen the form get authorized as a dealer. It takes millions to be one of these dealers.
This is also only for the MS Eagles not proofs ect...

 

so the big dealers buy wholesale from the mint, and the local dealers buy wholesale from the big guys?

 

does anybody think the values of the early date ms69 and ms70 graded coins will continue to go up. they seem to be rising lately. I see so many of the early date ASE that are beat up, in junk trays. I dont think people are taking good care of them.

 

621,333 individual boxes, means 621,333 collectors might have one to sell.

3.6 million sold in monster boxes of 500, means 7200 monster boxes left the mint.

How many 1996 monster boxes have been opened and sold individually, how many were sold as monster boxes and were never broken apart? That is one unknown that might be playing a role here.

 

That's because they are just a bullion coin.

 

i understand that. however people are paying more and more for certain dates of quality eagles

 

They are a product of an over-speculative market.

If you want to know what I think of them, I think that they will follow the fates of the 1950-D Jefferson Nickel. Did you know that in 1962 a nice unc 50-D sold for more than it does today?

 

By definition, mint mark eagles do have a mint mark. The Uncirculated (burnished) collectors coins have the W mint mark. The regular bullion coins do not have a mint mark.

It depends on the year. 2013-W in MS-70 sell for $70-90. 2012-W in MS-70 is over $100. The bullion versions of both years in MS-70 sells for $50-60.

The burnished eagles (mint marked) are not that popular. They are minted to demand, but they only sold a little over 200,000 last year. There could be less than 200,000 collectors of burnished eagles currently. So 600,000+ (of the 2007W eagles) is higher than current demand.

There seems to be a lot more people collecting and stacking the bullion eagles. So, what's available on the market of the 3.6M mintage might actually be too little to meet demand.

 

Direct sales of the uncirculated (burnished) specimens did not start until 2006.

Chris

 

Yes, that was in 2009! From the mid-80's to that time, there were countless acts of terrorism taking place within the country. Would you want to advertise the fact that we were housing a large store of gold & silver bullion at a military academy?

Chris

 

A point to note is that the 1996 Silver Eagle has an absolutely horrid reputation for spotting and an MS68 coin will sell at half that of an MS69. Given the spotting with this particular year, unspotted MS69's a very difficult to locate and as such, they do command premiums.

I would be very hesitant to purchase a sealed box of these if one could be located since these even spot in the monster boxes. I have seen rolls that had nice strikes but they were horribly spotted.

Compared to any other year, 1996 was the worst for spotting.

 

There are roughly 13 Master Bullion dealers that buy the Monster Green Boxes directly from the U.S. Mint. After that, they get sold to/through the coin dealer networks. None of these coins have a mint mark. Individual collectors of these coins must buy them through these channels.

http://www.usmint.gov/consumer/?action=americanEagles