Latest information from the mint: " the US Mint announced this week that it would stop selling Braille dollars after 5:00 p.m. ET on Dec. 11. For the record, a total of 202,655 of the authorized 400,000 silver dollars have been sold." It would appear that this series is a bust based on only half of the authorization being sold with only a month left. More specifically is the Education Set with a maximum mintage authorized of 25,000 yet only 8,000 being sold. So, the question is, do we have a long term sleeper here or is it destined to be a coin that will never have collector value?
I don't think it will be a sleeper, because I look at the coin and basically don't have any desire to own it. Not sure that it will ever catch fire because there is no demand for it....
Scarcity alone isn't enough in the long run. There has to have been demand for it at some time. I'm with bobbeth87. I have no desire to ever own this coin. The question is who will want it 20, 50 or even 100 years from now?
The mint hasn't sold them, but that doesn't mean they weren't struck. If they were struck, the Mint will hold them. If the price does rise appreciably, I can easily imagine them selling them in the future, as they have done with many issues in the past.
I bought one but I tend to agree with the majority here that you need to have a demand to play off that low supply number and right now there's no demand. Of course anything could happen down the road.
Braille Dollar= Ugly, Low Demand... Thus not a sell out, and nobody gives a rat's behind Lincoln Dollar= UGLIER, HIGH DEMAND, SELLOUT, everybody rushing to sell and make a profit, and everybody looking to own this "rare" coin Just the year of lincoln I guess... Personally, I wouldn't buy either coin, only right price for me on these two coins, is a price in which I can make profit off of. Sorry to say out, but the commemoratives this year, sucked!
AHHHH! MY HEAD HURTS! MAKE IT STOP!!! Didn't even get to see my set, just shipped it right out to my buyer... (Odd thing is, I'm kinda hoping she returns it, so the set will be all mine) MUHAHAHAHAHA! You know, because of the low set mintage, n' all!
I've been trying to formulate my opinion on the Braille dollar for awhile now. I have an aunt who lost her sight as a teenager (60+ years ago), and we had talked about it and the idea of Braille money as well. Her opinion was that she hasn't dealt with money herself in so long, she doesn't care whether they make audio-enabled cash But I really do think there should be something done with cash to enable blind people to handle it themselves. Probably won't happen since plastic seems to be the way of the future (increasing prices on everything by 1-2% because of processing fees - the reason I use cash money as much as possible. Anyhow, here's my long-winded thoughts on top of long-winded thoughts: 1) The commemoratives rarely do much of anything in terms of value appreciation. There's been a couple in the 90's, but really, they're fairly stable from the time they come out. 2) Part of the reason for that is that they seem to have the right mintage number down, where there's enough to go around, but not so many that they don't maximize profits for the mint and the contribution for whatever the cause is. 3) #2 being said, if this one doesn't sell out, it'll rank on the lower end of commemorative mintage in recent years. That word gets out, and eventually it might give it a little pop...but probably not much 4) I considered this as well...its the Braille dollar, even being sold in an option with an easy-open capsule. Certainly, a portion of these are being bought by or for a blind person, who is likely going to want to feel the coin. Feeling UNC and Proof coinage generally doesn't help its grade ; ) So the top population may be additionally shrunk. 5) Referring to #4 - so by how much? Well, everyone seems to be referring to the coin as unattractive, probably why it hasn't sold much, even though it has the same mintage limit and silver content as the Lincoln, so it could be a fairly significant number which are shipping to blind people (100,000 sent to blind people who read Braille and want to touch the coin wouldn't shock me at all, especially since many of them, even if non-collectors, would be more likely to have heard about the coin. Anyhow, I almost passed it up, and for the past few years, I've been getting at least one of each commemorative, sometimes bunches (a big box o' Bald Eagles, and a little stack of Lincolns, because I really loved both of those). Thinking about it more, I think its time to go ahead and order 2 each, proof and unc. 1 each for the collection, and 1 each "just in case" there's some signficant value.
That's exactly why I bought mine, thinking it could be a sleeper, but now I'm not really sure. Now I wish they would take what's left and make some ASEs. Sorry, had to take one more shot at them.
Alright Chuck, take a deep breath, now say, "Serenity now," take another deap breath. Repeat 20 times......you'll feel better. LOL
Im torn with this coin. I wanna purchase it but I dont. Mentioned before, it isnt attractive coin but ive read about Louis & he doesnt get the respect he deserves in invention history & this coin is a good thing.
I'm thinking that it is a dud. Whenever I see the mint putting things in the "Last Opportunity" section, I'm thinking that even they know its a dud. If you see HSN hocking them, lets nail the coffin shut. Thank god I didn't buy this one.
