ASE set SOLD OUT

I predicted a sell-out in 6 hours and it sold out in 4-hours. That must be a record for the mint for something with a 100,000 population. I understand why it took me 20-minutes before they accepted my offer at 12:20 PM. I needed to exit and re-enter the website four times. Finally, I got to quick checkout and nothing seemed to happen when I clicked on the "buy" button (numerous times). I exited the website and re-entered a few more times and found out that they accepted the order at 12:20 PM. They really need an IT nerd to correct their website. If ebay can do it, shouldn't the government?

 

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You are designing an online ordering system. The more orders per hour it can handle the more expensive it is. Three hundred and sixty days out of the year you need a system that can handle 500 orders per hour. The other five days out of the year for four to six hours you will be hit with a demand of 20,000 orders per hour. What do you design the system to handle?

 

People complaining don't seem to realize this. I suppose the government should spend more tax dollars overdesigning a system to withstand a demand that's only present for less than 1% out of the year.

 

We think so much alike on this! My complete ASE collection is all in OGP with the exception of the bullion coins. Those are only slabbed because I was concerned about fakes and got a crazy good deal on a 1986 - 2009 NGC MS-69 set just before silver took off from the $18-19 level last fall.

To me there will always be something inexplicably satisfying about having the coins exactly as they came from the Mint, and tucking them away in their original boxes rather than in some soulless track box full of slabs. Maybe it's a tactile thing.

 

I missed the cut. Also the waiting list has been cancelled.

Will you be selling any of your sets at a reasonable mark-up ?

 

"People complaining don't seem to realize this. I suppose the government should spend more tax dollars overdesigning a system to withstand a demand that's only present for less than 1% out of"

It's not as tough as it seems. Before I retired from the Federal government two years ago they were moving a lot of computer time to offsite server farms. (I was on the record as resisting this migration for mission critical applications) Before I retired my workgroup had a system down time that was nonexistent most years. After the migration system downtime increased by a couple hours a year.
I recently ran into a friend still working there he tells me so many applications have migrated to offsite server farms that the local IT shop that serves thousands of employees spread across
more than a dozen sites has lost a lot a management staff and some system administrators. . The point of all this is there is no reason the Mint couldn't reserve extra server time for events such as the sale of Anniversary sets.
However, what complicates Mint sales is I believe, sales are farmed out to a private entity. In that case the private company could reserve server time from anotherr private company.
The Mint needs to rewrite their contract to accommodate big sales events.

 

Others have posted their orders are "on hold" or on the "wait list."

I'm not sure what to make of my order because it doesn't say wait or held:

"Thank you, we have received your order. Please do not disclose your order receipt number. If for any reason your
order cannot be processed, we reserve the right to cancel.
Inventory may not be available to fill orders placed under a
"wait list" notice. Orders placed before the published on-
sale time will not be accepted. Orders containing several
items may be filled in multiple shipments. Registered users
may track their order at www.usmint/catalog. Guest users
with order inquiries should call 1-800-USA-MINT. To update
credit card information, call 1-800-USA-MINT (872-6468)."

 

The email confirmation doesn't say it. You need to login at the mint and go to "track order" to see the "hold" message

 

Thanks.