If you are watching ebay you will notice that there are very few John Adam's Smooth Edges listed and furthermore a handful of double struck. In my opinion, slabbed double struck 64's to 65's will sell in the $250 range by late July and they will either hold their own or go up in value from there and here is why. 1) The US Mint is looking into this fiasco and supposedly will release a statement once they conclude their investigation. Once this happens I expect Reuters and the AP to pick this up and in turn many local and national news organizations across the country to pick it up from the AP and Reuters. 2) The Washington Smoothies took off and basically tripled in value the same day the USA Today did a front page article on them and if this does hit the USA Today then I expect the same thing to happen with the Adam's Double Struck and Smoothies. I expect news to hit the USA Today when the Mint releases its statement or when someone brings it to their attention. 3) NGC and PCGS should begin publishing their numbers next week and I believe a lot of collectors are waiting on the sidelines to see just how many are out there and once they begin to release these numbers collectors will see that there are just a fraction of the double struck and smoothies out there relative to the Washington SMoothies. Furthermore, I bet we will only see a hundred or so Adam's Smoothies that have been graded so far and when collectors see for example almost 30,000 Washington Smoothies that have been graded by NGC and only a tiny fraction of that for the Adam's Smoothies then I see prices really going up. From my experience of talking to other finders of these coins and my own experience I'm expecting estimates for the smoothies to be in the 3 to 4 thousand range and around 30,000 for the double struck. Finally, collectors will realize the rarity of these Adam's SMoothies relative to the Washington and will likely be jumping all over them by rationalizing that these could be the rarest of the rarest of famous errors in the past 100 years which include the WIsconsin Leafs, the 55 double die, the 37 3 legged buffalo, etc....
How are you aware that the Mint is looking into this 'fiasco'? Why do you expect Reuters and AP to pick up this story?
I can hardly wait. Think the mint should cease all prouduction of all presidential coins until they can figure out what the heck is going on with these Error coins. If it takes them a few years that is ok with me.
09s_V.D.B., here is how I know I frequent Ken Potter's website who is a reknowned coin error specialist and he recently did an article for a major coin magazine and here is an excerpt: "Michael White of the U.S. Mint’s public affairs office indicated that, as of June 4, the Mint was still unaware of the errors being released. White commented that the information was now being assessed and that a statement would be forthcoming." I expect Reuters and/or the AP to pick it up because they did with the Washington Smoothies and I'm sure reporters from both agencies are assigned to constantly monitor press releases from the US Mint. Personally, I wouldn't be a buyer of these coins on speculation of a news announcement, but in my opinion if this news breaks with major publications or tv then I see a whole new breed of collectors coming in for these coins. Furthermore, I'm awaiting NGC and PCGS to begin publishing their numbers and I think low numbers relative to the Washington Smoothies could be a bigger plus for these coins than publicity. For example, I believe that when NGC began publishing their numbers for the Washington Smoothies right off the bat there like 8000 or 9000 that had already been graded. Unfortunately, it took them around 4 weeks to begin publishing their numbers even though they had been grading the Washington Smoothies for 4 weeks- I have no idea why they hold back like this.
