5 oz silver America the Beautiful

Great idea! Extra packaging = higher premiums to pay for the coins! :thumb: :whistle:

Mexico's 5 oz. Libertads are 65mm (2.55") maybe the US Mint should hire (outsource) some of their engineers to figure out what they cannot.

 

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I'm not a big fan of packaging, but if the Parks had some sort of standardized packaging that displayed the coin along with a pictorial history of the Park, that might be nice...something with a slip cover along the lines of the Benjamin Franklin Coin & Chronicle set.

Putting together a complete collection of those would really be something! You would have to travel to each Park and be lucky enough to get one...or get on off eBay.

Oh well...no sense in getting all worked up over something that doesn't exist. :goof:

 

Three times now, this DARN forum software has eaten my post. DARNed if I type the whole thing in again. The average thickness of the 3" coin will be larger than that of an SAE, which is a lot more than paper thin.

 

Let the powers-that-be know... Snappy?

 

To be fair, Congress created the specifications for the coin which the mint probably would not have picked had they been left to decide the diameter of the coin.

I did the quick math and the difference of a 3 in diameter coin vs 2.55 makes for some tough engineering. The average thickness of the Libertad is more than a 1/3 greater than what the quarter bullion will have to be. And this much thinner coin has to cover 38% more area. If this wasn't bad enough, Congress also spec'd edge lettering on this thin wide coin.

If I did the math right I get an average thickness of just 128 mills or rather 3.25 mm for this coin. Of course coins are not completely flat so there will be places where it will have to be thinner than this. This compares to ~3 mm for the ASE. IMO, the US Mint is probably at the cutting edge with this coin and is most likely going to break new ground with it's production.

 

I hope that they will be able to break new ground, set the bar for future issues, offer stunning detail in design and production and do so in an economical fashion while meeting a reasonable release date this year. It's a tall order but challenge can be an inspiring cataylst for innovation. It's curious though that the coin legislation in the first place would not be arrived at based on proven capabilities, prior to signing/passing, ensuring such design demand is not pressured by technical hurdles. I am eager to see what will come of these issues. If the coins end up looking sloppy the effectiveness of the entire issue may be affected as well as create some unique early issues to pique collector interest should errors or die varieties escape the Mint's grasp. Should be interesting to see what the new series will usher in...

 

Time will tell.
Will it be the best or bust

 

i did not see the schedule to sell the 5 oz quarter yet. anyone know?.

 

Nothing yet officially announced. The window for release dates this year narrows by the day, three and a half months into 2010.

 

If I had the money, I think all 56 would be quite a sight! It will be interesting to see how they sell. If investors gobble them up, maybe it will slow down the desire for the Silver Eagles and they will be able to produce the proofs......

 

This happens to me too. If the site doesn't want to post your comment and is forcing you to log in again, you can highlight your text and push Ctrl C to copy it. Then you log in and when you get to the box to post, push Ctrl V to paste in what you had typed before. :rolling:

Good luck!

P.S. I find it odd that people blame Congress for the coin's dimensions. Sure, the coin has to be approved by Congress, but I doubt some politician decided on the size and dimensions of this coin. More likely, some mint official decided on this size and dimension and then made that recommendation to congress. If you ask Congress what is the volume of a 3" disk with a 3 mm height, I doubt half of them would be able to conjure up the mathematical formula of 3.14*radius^2*height........let alone figure in the density of silver on top of that.

 

Snappy?

Let them know if there are still issues...

 

That's what I got too.

(Posting from Safari this time, from Firefox I get told that my post is 0 characters long).

 

They didn't actually specify the thickness. The legislation only says 5 oz, 3 in diameter and edge lettering. The average height I derived myself. Depending upon the relief it could be a lot thinner than that, though I suspect there won't be much of a relief to it.

My guess is the designers at the mint would have been a lot happier if they had been allowed to do a 2 in coin. It gives them a lot more flexibilty on making a beautiful coin without having to make tradeoffs on structural integrity. I believe I saw that it is the edge lettering that is adding a complexity to it that has been tough to overcome.