Mint order limits

Yep, 80% hit the aftermarket. 80,000 sets. If 150,000 people want a set, where do you think the price will go? Certainly not down.

 

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I don't quite get your logic. Are you suggesting that systems should be able to handle normal traffic, not abnormal traffic? If that's the case, let me make 2 analogies as to how this makes no sense to me.

Suppose you pay for cable that includes an extra add-on for a sporting channel. Let's say that channel works every day of the year except for the day the Super Bowl is airing, because there is "just too much demand" on the system that day. Is that excusable?

Another more serious analogy. Suppose you work for the Corps of Engineers. You are building a new dam. It will hold back the flood except for the most extreme of cases. You don't build the dam for the "average" flood risk, you build it for the maximum expectation.

Long story short, it's bad business. The percentage of the days in a year that a system is down is not a relevant statistic. The relevant statistic is what percentage of your yearly income you are putting in jeopardy by having insufficient systems.

In the case of the mint, they obviously don't care about customer service or their marketing image. The same money-hungry prospectors will continue to buy their overpriced bullion and try to flip a profit on eBay or elsewhere. Anyway, I hope this all fizzles soon...it's a distraction from collecting coins.

 

You're not paying for a membership to purchase items from the US Mint. Cable customers are paying for their service to watch the Super Bowl on tv.

The mint's servers crashing and you not being able to purchase a coin set because of the demand is not causing death/injuries/loss of property/ and/or any other monetary damage. It is also not regulated by local/state/federal government like engineering projects are.

Please give another example that would compare. Those examples are too far off.

edit: it's also the "Corps of Engineers" not "core". Sorry..I'm an engineer

 

The point is that the US Mint doesn't have to care about their image. My examples were apropos, whether you want to admit it or not. I'm not spending any more time on these useless ASE threads. I'm just ready for this obsession and gripe-fest about the US Mint to be over, so these boards can return to Numismatics...

 

Words of wisdom. Anybody remember the 2010 ATB 5 oz bullion coins? They sold out in a flash. People were paying up to $2500 on eBay for them, Coin Vault was asking $4000.00 for them! Now you can buy a set for a little over $1000.

 

I also think collectors should wait to buy. These are all going to start arriving mid November and hit the market right at the start of the holidays when people may not be willing to shell out big money for them. If demand in the secondary market is less then expected, prices will likely fall. TC

 

The mint is self funding, the taxpayers don't pay for it. And part of that self funding comes from the profits selling collector coins.

It's not likely but it is possible. Back in 2001 when the buffalo coin and currency sets were doing a runaway they did step in and lower order limits. Doesn't happen often but it can be done.

Actually you usually build for a little over the average plus a margin of safety of 25 to 50%. Building for the maximums usually winds up in overbuilding and extreme costs that most people are not willing to pay. And most of the time you are just fine. Every now and then it will come back to bite you

 

Agreed. Ticketmaster does nothing but handle busy internet ticket sales therefore need to have updated IT setup.
Mint has 5 hours once a year with our "we want it now" attitude. That would cost lots of tax payers money to just upgrade that and I now already there was complaining of the price of their products.

 

Zero is the answer. That computer could have been down for day's and they would have sold them all out. It's inverse in this case. As these things RAISE demand not drop it. Just like if they lowered the mintage MORE people would want it.

 

And in reality even with the problems they still sold all they were goting to make in about five hours.

 

Maybe the mint should have a frequent buyer ID card for loyal repeat collector customers :thumb:

 

Now that's a idea.

But do you think that would stop the complaining? As I'm sure dealers and the "big guys" would have more "buyer point" then most.

 

Yeah, I don't know why they didn't limit this set to 1 per household. It would have been the fairest way to handle it. All people would have had to gripe about then was that they didn't make 750k more sets. Who cares how long they'd take to sell out. Some people would have got there's yesterday. Some today with maybe less hassle.

I did read a note somewhere that they were going to be updating their system next year to better handle these mass influxes of orders.

 

IMO a 1 per house limit does not make anything go away but makes it harder.
5x more people trying to order their set
5x more shipping
5x more labor for the mint to get the product out
Dealers will still have people buy these for them.

They kept the mintage low to keep excitement up for the set. And it worked, almost too well. I think the mint handled this as well as we let them.

 

It would have been nice if subscription holders were offered the chance to pre-buy a set (one) prior to the release. This would have reduced traffic on release day, targetted more collectors verses flippers, and over the long term boosted their subscription base.

 

And of course if they had upgraded their system to accept all the orders without bogging down the sellout, instead of dragging on for almost five hours would have sold out in what one hour or less? So any of you folks who weren't there for the opening gun at noon probably would have lost out anyway. Couldn't get to the computer until 1PM eastern? Oh sorry all gone.

 

C Jay, I LIKE IT! best plan/idea I've seen yet. This would make me get a subscription, I've never had a need before. Only Negative is if the limit was LT the number of subscribers as in First spouse issues of 40k 20k proof + 20k Unc. This would work real nice, One is better then none, Also you just had to get all FIVE SETS after working the phone and web for over four hours. It would spread the coin to the collectors and help reduce the number of flippers. Web site wouldn't be hammered before 11:55 with all of us having to get our set.


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holz, thank you for you comment. The mint or congress could adjust the limit based on the subscriber base, leaving plenty available at release time. This could however reduce the "value" of the set by increasing the limit for a high demand coin set like this one. Also, if a subscriber wished additional sets they could add additional set on release day up to their limit. I would also keep the pre-buy option limited to subscription types. Silver Eagles, Gold Eagles, Mint Sets, and so on.

 

Free enterprise or manipulated enterprise? What makes you think that the Mint didn't make them intentionally and then leaked the information to the numismatic community to spur sales to wishful thinkers?

Chris

 

That would have taken intelligence. I rest my case.