I found this interesting: http://www.coinworld.com/articles/ever-wonder-what-happens-to-unsold-u-s-mint-p/
Definitely our Government at work with uneeded steps to get rid of inventory. All that is needed is one phone call to me and I will pick up the product and dispose of it. No unneccessary steps needed. Think of the tens of millions of dollars they would save. The money would then help stimulate the economy from my end.
It's good you posted that. There's too many out there who think the mint just has bags and bags of stuff just sitting around. Been telling them for years that they don't, but ........
It's something that I've been meaning to look up since I was curious of what they do with decommissioned items like the CMH Commemorative and the Army Commemorative. I wonder how many Mint and Proof sets they manufacture, sell and destroy each year. You would think that they have enough data accumulated over the years that they would be able to put out Proof and Mint sets based on prior year’s history and wouldn’t have to destroy a bunch of coins. Obviously commemoratives are a case by case basis...
I'm sure there are easier, cheaper, and more efficient ways to complete this process. But logic was never a strong suit at the mint.
Fulfillment of orders placed allowed to be placed in a set period of time is an idea I have thought may help many collectors acquire the modern numismatic releases from the US Mint and for the Mint to limit waste from over production. It may also improve quality checks as returns would not be necessarily replaceable, but still refundable. Orders placed would define mintage. Instead of the current release days when orders slam the Mints servers and phone lines, release day would exist for a longer, yet finite period of time when orders could be placed. When the short window of opportunity to order closed, then only that number of coins would be minted, rather than marketers trying to design a mintage or commemorative coin bills trying to legislate a mintage to raise money for something else. Delivery of coins would come as production could fulfill the orders even if it took longer than currently fulfillment takes. Anyway, waste less and accommodate the customers who get shut out of popular modern coins releases and there may be a redeeming thread of hope in the Mint yet. Just a thought...
It does seem like the mint could save quite a bundle by doing mintage in a 6-month window AFTER orders have been placed (and maybe minting a 1-2% overage to cover returns/replacements).
When they mint coins they don't just mint an entire mintage at one time. They mint what they think they can sell, and then mint more as orders come in. But they often do end up with leftovers. And then there's returns. That's for numismatic items of course. And they don't end up with as many leftovers as a lot of people think. Read the Annual Reports every year and you get a fair idea of how many leftovers they have had that year. With production coins, coins for circulation, they base their numbers on the orders placed by the Fed the prior year. The Fed determines what those orders will be based on the call-outs they get from the banks. If the Fed ends up with too many coins of a particular denomination left over, the orders for that denomination are decreased the next year. If they end up with not enough, they increase the order the next year. That's why mintages vary so much.
I hope you're right krispy. Most of us have little management experience for a facility of this size, but I feel we have enough logical and practical advice to make better decisions than the experts have been doing.
With numerous collector forums to draw ideas from, all the Mint needs to do is heed some advice or compile these ideas and fix what it's customers feel is broken or not serving the collectors to the fullest. Instead they shovel millions to firms in other nations to figure out why an avalanche of orders log jams their servers and phones when they force a popular coin to have a low mintage and encourage profit-flipping by increasing household numbers. It's nutty.
But the mint has no control over the mintage numbers. Those are decided by Congress. The mint can only do what they are told to do. As for household numbers - they (the mint) lose either way they go. You can't win. Increase the numbers and the public screams because they couldn't get any. Decrease the numbers and the public screams because they could get enough. How do you win with that ? Are there better ways to do things ? Maybe, but danged if I know what they are. And for the record, people at the mint read this forum.
I understand that mintages are controlled by Congress. I wasn't suggesting that the Mint did or should have any control over mintage. Quite the opposite really. I was suggesting a change for the numismatic products which are marketed to collectors. Customers of these products, individuals or businesses reselling coins, should be able to define the mintage by how much they want to buy from the Mint. Supply of blanks, metals, etc? Fulfillment of orders would not need to be immediate, as it is now nearly is when a customer places an order direct from the Mint for numismatic products. To some degree mintage is already determined by sales figures, but the Mint allows for returns and have to mint large quantities in advance of fulfilling orders prior to coin products releasing for sale, hence waste accumulates and cherry pickers may over order only to return those coins they deem poor, distorting sales/mintage. Customers would have to be more conservative in the numbers of coins they ordered and there would be more scrutiny of whether a coin was to be shipped to a customer damaged. Likewise a customer would think twice about returning coins they deem lower grade knowing they could not get a replacement from the Mint. The change I suggest, is that the order process would open on a set date/time and close soon thereafter, say a 5-7 day period of time for orders to be placed. Coins would be minted to fulfill only those orders placed. Orders would not be allowed all year long for all products as they are now. Returns for poor quality coins or damaged coins would only receive refunds or credit towards next purchases, as no more coins could be minted past the order date window closing. Household numbers are not a problem in this scenario, the customer need only order within the window of opportunity. The Mint then has the rest of time to fulfill the orders for collectors. Collectors don't like large mintages so naturally will need to order fewer to control the size of a mintage, same for companies reselling coins who may place large orders. The Mint wins by selling products it knows how much they need to produce exactly for customers, by saving on waste from over production and by elimination processes of de-trashing accountabilty. "You can please all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot please all the people all the time."
I dunno krispy, I don't think your ideas would work. Your order time frames would not be anywhere near long enough. And a lot of those returns you talk about are sent right back out to other customers, unless there something drastically wrong with them. And most are accepted without a thought. Overall, the way the mint does things is pretty dang efficient. Sure there is a lot of oversight and double checking. But when it's the public's money that's involved, there should be. If the rest of the govt. had that much oversight there wouldn't be anywhere near as much wasteful spending as there is now. Sounds like what you are describing is a made to order coin factory - not a mint.
I think there's always room for change and the system the Mint has for taking orders and fulfilling them is from from efficiently meeting it's customers wants, so there is room for improvement here. Mine was just an idea that I had about helping to solve some of the issues that confront the Mint's numismatic products customers. And if it sounds like a made to order coin factory, that's pretty much what direction I see the Mint heading in or attempting to be for these products. I believe such a system would address and meet the needs of the collectors as it would have a more natural way of determining how much people decided to buy in a short period of time. The short window of order opportunity would force people to make a decision and that decision would net the collector market it's mintages, not a year's worth of sales and costs of production more responsible for waste and de-thrashing processes. Of course returns made under the current system are turned right back around to the next customer, that's also addressed in my idea, the elimination of seconds. Each order would get the first look and luck of the draw for their coins ordered, not another persons reject. The idea is to control waste and treat orders more seriously while fulfilling orders for those who want the coins. The Mint already attempts to juggle release of coins throughout the year on a difficult schedule, this idea would change everything related to that approach. The Mint has recently moved it's annual numismatic coin releases up to the first quarter of the year and it may be helping, but it still leaves products for sale for the whole year, in which time they have to keep supply on hand then have silly "last chance" sales before de-trashing the inventory. Again, my idea eliminates holding inventory for the whole year, in effect there is NO inventory, only orders to fulfill. The window of opportunity would certainly work as customers would learn to utilize it as quickly as they have learned to buy limited mintage hyped new products on release day, managing to sell them out in hours or a day or two. In this current scenario limited mintage would not be the driving factor (that and the hopes of profiting instantly). The Mint's current order system isn't being rectified as it continues to either slow the order process to a halt and shut out some customers OR it's open for orders so long they haven't any idea how much of a given product they will sell. Since release day orders/sales of less hyped and hot products peak and level off soon thereafter, I think a order window of a few days is more than enough, a 5-7 day window could be short for some, but it would soon be obvious that to get products you need to buy while the window is open. No one would need wishlists open the whole year either. It may appear that I'm rambling on here but it's because I have found many ideas in this alternative thought to addressing the Mint's process for fulfilling orders and demand of it's numismatic products which have a unique but recurring set of unresolved customer complaint issues needing to be addressed. Orders filled on demand or made to order on a limited time basis for orders received seems worth the Mint's time to look into, especially if it takes them huge sums of money just to look into fixing the current problem with taking orders now. Again, just my thoughts to help improve the process and give people what they want without so much waste or tears.
In a way,the processes and systems used for coins used in circulation are second to none. Considering the billions of coins produced each year, the number of errors is pretty low compared to say the automotive industry. I realize it is not a great comparison, but other than over production of certain issues (which they have no control over), they are doing excellent. From a collector's standpoint, they do have issues. Stopping production of trendy, poor selling items has improved the market considerably. But what I feel would help sell products is considering input from the customers who purchase collector only items. How about a consumer vote to choose the next commemorative design? It might change the trashy designs we've been seeing on quarters.
