Authorized Bulk Purchase Program (ABPP) & Numismatic Bulk Purchase Program (NBPP)

Have any collectors ever searched one of these or even managed to get their hands on one?



I know you have to be a licensed dealer or some other licensed numismatics business to even apply for the program.

What I'm wondering is if you can order a bulk bag from a licensed dealer?

 

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Theyve been sold before. You can set up a deal with them to get one, it wont be cheap though

Just search for ballistic bags

 

Yeah, even buying one at face value would be expensive, lol. I just wondered if it would be worth the investment?

 

I wouldnt get one for investment, the only real buyers for these would be people trying to search for things to get graded. If you really love searching bags looking for things to have graded it could be worth it to you, but you'd probably be better off with smaller bags.

 

The reason I ask is there is a (somewhat local) group of collectors that brought up the idea of investors splitting the cost and profit.

I'm not worried about losing money since it will never be worth less than face value and I realize it won't be a quick flip but I don't know if it's worth the long game.

 

Well the problem is you cant buy them at face value. There will be a mark up for the sale plus very significant shipping costs. The other problem is the only real buyers for them are the companies that can just get one themselves. Collectors and 99.9 percent of dealers arent ordering these to spend a full week searching. Just think about how much 2,600 pounds actually is, that's essentially shipping a small car.

You would essentially be guaranteed to lose money trying to buy one to flip it

 

When the Tennessee quarter was released 20 years ago, Graceland
(Elvis Presley) in Memphis bought several pallets of each Philly and
Denver release. They sold and still sell them at the gift shop.

 

Shipping is free and they even offer discounts for purchases over $10K. But I see where your coming from, I'm sure wherever they ordered it from would charge whatever fees they can to make it profitable to them.

I've bought $250 bank bags of quarters before and didn't make a profit so I guess your saying this would be the same thing only on a larger scale, lol.

As far as searching I was hoping to be unavailable during that time, lol.

 

That's exactly what I'm afraid of. What kind of time scale am I looking at before I even had a chance of breaking even, lol.



Does the NBPP program offer a better chance?

 

You quoted for PMs. PMs dont come in ballistic bags. You need to read further down the page for circulating coins where shipping is absolutely not free, the companies have to go pick up the bags themselves as the mint wont even ship them. You'll be looking at probably 4 figures in shipping costs alone and you can bet they will pass ever penny of their expenses onto you and still expect to make a profit to do it.

You will absolutely lose money on such a venture. It's also a really really really bad way to invest there are countless things that are much better

 

Thanks for the info. I had my doubts, that's why i asked. It seemed like a huge gamble on the odds of finding something to justify it.

 

The only real chance of any sort of return would be searching it for gradable ones and then a big bulk submission that would have to be sold off too. At that point you'd be competing against the sources you got it from who will have much lower price points

The MUCH smaller bags would be better to search. Even the 50 dollar penny bags can get tedious, Ive still got like 10 dollars left in one I just got sick of looking at lol.

 

There was an argument made that numismatic businesses only buy these because there's a profit to be made, which I didn't have an answer for despite my doubts, lol.

That's why I asked here, I had no idea and didn't feel comfortable investing in something that would need to be handled like a business.

 

@YankeeDime your break even and possible profit would come from sending in and receiving MS68 grades from one of the 2 leading TPGs. Just because you think the coin looks special, doesn't mean the TPGs will. Good luck.

 

I hear ya, it took me over a week to search this bag, lol.

 

I think I'm going to sit this one out and see how it goes for them. If they do good and decide to do it again I may join in the fun, lol

 

I'm pretty sure they aren't very popular given the significant cost of just picking one up for them. It's really too many coins to blindly bulk submit too, but the big boys probably have done it before in the right situation. Even HSN doesnt really mess around with them very much.

 

If nothing else should be a good chuckle when they have like a 4 figure shipping bill quote. Your local mail carrier isnt going to be dropping off 2600 pounds lol

 

Right, lol

 

I was surprised to read post #8 about domestic shipping free. That would cost a pretty penny for sure.

I think the overall idea has some merit but I would want; My share is free from profit sharing. If I'm doing the searching, I should reap the rewards (if any at all).