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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;krispy, post: 1305487, member: 19065&quot;]==========</p><p><br /></p><p>The&nbsp; part I made <b><span style="color: #008000">bold and green</span></b> above addresses something that I have&nbsp; thought about in recent years regarding the distribution of popular&nbsp; Mint products. I believe the Mint does not understand it&#039;s customer&nbsp; base, not well enough, nor how large of a pool they are failing to reach. </p><p><br /></p><p>A few&nbsp; ideas have occurred to me and continue to return each time I see&nbsp; something these manufactured low mintage sell outs occur. Time and again we see forums driving the hype&nbsp; and dealers eating us up. I think collectors react based on a trained marketing response that the Mint has taught us to behave through repeat sales tactics and using blogs,&nbsp; media and direct mail that tells us what to expect in upcoming releases. The rapid sell out of&nbsp; products becomes predictable (redundant to the point of craziness) and there&#039;s been a growing tendency for&nbsp; individual collectors to become speculators, of larger dealers with a&nbsp; greater national or even global reach (such as Modern Coin Mint,&nbsp; MintProducts.com and HSN.CoinVault, et al.) to gouge a path into our ways, much greater than that of brick and&nbsp; mortar dealers (even those with minimal online sales outlets and customers)-- this is to day&nbsp; that this pattern of sales is killing the modern coin market, no matter sell outs and how robust secondary dealers appear to be doing, just as much as would&nbsp; ensuring everyone gets one approach by never imposing mintage limits. </p><p><br /></p><p>A rule of X-number per <u>house</u>hold is in literal-violation if addressed to anywhere but a residential address. The Mint ought&nbsp; first to enforce <i>literally</i> the terminology they themselves opt to use in sales materials and the online catalog. Therefore,&nbsp; no product goes discreetly to P.O. Boxes (UPS doesn&#039;t deliver to them anyway, they are a&nbsp; company that works more with businesses anyway, <i>hint hint</i>, that&#039;s where the&nbsp; coins are going-- to businesses no collectors households!), and not to any other address including&nbsp; shipping to ones work place address (technically with different credit&nbsp; card billing addresses even individuals could beat the&nbsp; Mint&#039;s ordering system without even asking friends and family to help.) </p><p><br /></p><p>So&nbsp; what does this all mean? Everyone ends up trying to get some, many end&nbsp; up exploiting the system because they can, companies manage to take product marketed to&nbsp; and for, and meant to be sold directly to collectors. The Mint&#039;s online catalog is <i>not</i> intended to be an outlet&nbsp; for dealers to source their inventory from. That is why in great part we&nbsp; struggle with ordering from this web site more and more. The Mint keeps us on a leash for when we may buy and&nbsp; for when we may spend our money with them for these things. The Mint hardly respects us as customers as they allow us&nbsp; little to NO power over when we can buy new products, alienating some people on a budget&nbsp; or who are undecided, etc. It means that the system benefits no one in&nbsp; the end, especially when the end result incenses, irritates and&nbsp; disparages the very body of customers the Mint aimed to serve and the&nbsp; body of customers that dealers hope to profit from, collectors.</p><p><br /></p><p>A system I have considered would&nbsp; better in serving all interested parties would also enable speculation&nbsp; based on unknowns in the mintage. It would allow a longer, but set&nbsp; window of opportunity for collectors and dealers alike to place any&nbsp; number of orders for any quantity of a given product so desired. A three, five or seven to ten day window of ordering ought to be standard for all new coin releases. When&nbsp; the window for ordering closes, no more orders may be received. The Mint&nbsp; goes to work producing and fulfilling all orders. Effectively, the site is only open for orders when new products become available and the site is not operating 24/7 in an e-commerce sense. </p><p><br /></p><p>Later the Mint&nbsp; publishes reports of sales figures and then the mintage can be estimated for a&nbsp; product. Then also values can be figured out on the secondary market in&nbsp; sales. Values, as they should, can go either way. But either way, more people get what they&nbsp; want initially and from the source. If not many orders get placed for a given product which later&nbsp; on proves to be popular with collectors, said numismatic values&nbsp; increase and dealers do their thing when demand exists to profit from.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Under such a system, no household limits exist, all companies can&nbsp; acquire product enough to fill customer orders, and prices don&#039;t have to&nbsp; artifically blow up at the start only to decline a year or so&nbsp; afterward. Under such a system, orders may only be returned for credit&nbsp; towards future products and any returned coins are to be destroyed to&nbsp; avoid cherrypickers over ordering and returning products that are in&nbsp; turn fulfilled for successive orders. Kinks like this have to be figured&nbsp; out so inventory mainly moves in one direction and doesn&#039;t return.&nbsp; Coins received by customers who claim damage and return have to decide&nbsp; how terribly damaged was the coin if they can&#039;t easily obtain a&nbsp; replacement since the order opportunity window closed and the returned&nbsp; coin(s) will be destroyed, and funds locked up in your Mint account&nbsp; (potentially many thousands even, for a dealer/company) when a credit is&nbsp; applied...</p><p><br /></p><p>So, fulfillment and mintage based on customer demand&nbsp; is the way I envision serving the entire community and balancing&nbsp; speculation as well as values in the immediate (and even pre-sale)&nbsp; aftermarket. The same potential for keys exists, but controlled only by&nbsp; the demand of the community that consumes the product to begin with.</p><p><br /></p><p>If&nbsp; it were the case that individual collectors wouldn&#039;t want a particular&nbsp; product because everyone could have one and it was perceived as&nbsp; &#039;worthless&#039; and cheaper on the secondary market the way it is now, then&nbsp; what does collecting really mean to you? Are you speculating and making&nbsp; an investment decision or a collecting decision based on admiration and&nbsp; appreciation as well as the enjoyment derived from the activity?</p><p><br /></p><p>If&nbsp; the idea of minting on demand sounds odd to anyone and your argument is&nbsp; that the Mint can&#039;t be profitable from this sort of business model, then&nbsp; consider that what the Mint does everyday for the Federal Reserve. They&nbsp; mint coins on demand for ongoing orders from banks that need to be&nbsp; fulfilled. We regularly hear reports for mintages of circulating coins&nbsp; through our numismatic information channels. If it&#039;s thought collector&nbsp; products cannot be profitable in this manner, then as a collector&nbsp; demanding these collectible materials who are concerned with mintages&nbsp; and investment potential in collectible items, wouldn&#039;t the Mint make&nbsp; more money and limit mintage also by simply asking us, the individual&nbsp; collectors, to pay more for what we request. </p><p><br /></p><p>Many people cannot fathom&nbsp; paying even more for these collectibles already significantly marked up, but with higher prices should come more customer demand for&nbsp; quality work, professional presentation, design and execution. Higher&nbsp; costs put more authority in the customer demanding more perfection in&nbsp; the fulfillment and care given in the product, uplifting the appeal and&nbsp; integrity of the product as well as protecting the hobby and it&#039;s&nbsp; intricacies of mintage statistics and valuations given. Higher cost&nbsp; doesn&#039;t have to mean some collectors are unable to access the product,&nbsp; it means collectors have to be more serious and intent on what they are&nbsp; buying as well as responsible for how much product they are ordering&nbsp; into existence and effectively consuming.</p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;d ask collectors to&nbsp; consider a system of minting on demand, with limitations in place to&nbsp; expedite orderly fulfillment, limit over-production and raise the retail&nbsp; price to avoid pricing matrix issues as well as increasing quality,&nbsp; service and protecting mintage levels. All this while taking care of the&nbsp; core audience, the core-customer, the collector. </p><p><br /></p><p>As it stands&nbsp; now dealers are breaking the backs of many a collector while the Mint is&nbsp; aiding and abetting the action simultaneously while permitting many&nbsp; individuals from avoiding such a fate because they are unable to get an&nbsp; order in when the Mint says you can spend your money. The Mint has to do&nbsp; more than fix their ordering snafus, indeed, they need a radically new&nbsp; model and if the hobby is to have a future for modern coinage, it needs a&nbsp; system in place that encourages and protects the consumers while&nbsp; rewarding them with superior quality work. IMO.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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