Petition for US Mint to change their gold coin lineup

Well would more people sign the petition if that were dropped from the petition?

 

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I couldn't answer that for sure...there are several things that I disagree with so I'm not going to sign it with or without it.

Based on what I have read...the TPG portion of the petition is one part that people here don't care for so removal might help.

 

How about if we broke up the petition into different pieces.

 

Personally I don't care if I get a "first strike" coin. So this would not be an incentive for me to sign this petition. But I do respect your passion for it

 

This isn't meant to sound elitist because I'm not made of money but the thought of a 1/20 oz gold coin to make it affordable to those with "less means" is just keeping them poor and making them more poor.

Using Canada and Apmex as a quick reference.

A 1/20 oz today is $90.54. That's $1810.80 and ounce for gold. They will buy it back for $79.42. That's roughly an $11 hit. Since that price assumes you will have to pay about $10 to have it shipped to you and another $5-10 to return ship it you are looking at investing about $105 to get back $80. You will never ever see gold get to a price to cover that buying one coin at a time.

Now take the 1/20 oz to a local dealer and 90% will give you melt for it. It's modern bullion to them. That's an even bigger hit. Today you'd get about $65 for that $100 coin(90+10shipping to you). And a lot of times if you buy local you better account for sales tax which makes it even harder yet.

That 1/20 oz will keep you upside down forever......................

I had a buddy looking to buy a 1 oz AGE for his kid to tuck away. Raw from Apmex it was about $1340 with a buy back of $1320. Pretty easy to recover from that, even with shipping. A slabbed AGE in MS69 gets you closer to $1400. I offered him one of my St Gaudens slabbed AU58(very nice eye appeal) for $1450. He jumped at it. He now has a piece of history that is slabbed and known to be authentic for only about an extra $50. Yes, it's only .9675 oz of gold but he's tickled to death.

1/20 will only keep you with limited means that you will never get out from under. Plus you will need to invest a really nice optics to be able to see something that small.

Save, save, save. It's worth it. But you need to change your mindset and the culture that has been created to keep people poor.

 

I'll not be signing it.

 

That's your choice

 

See either in this thread or the other one by the OP, I was buying up Saints for 4% over spot when HA was importing them from Europe about a decade ago. Liberties were even less, like 1.5-2%. They won't holder in MS, but I like them and well, even with the downturns in metals the past couple of years, they are still worth nearly 3X what they were when I bought them.

 

Logic means nothing to dreamers and usually its the young who have absolutely no understanding of the boin "business" that want to make the biggest "changes" to satisfy their personal longing to own "something if not anything" that others have worked their entire lives to own and enjoy.

No doubt, this is an instant gratification society which is fed by the young who have no basic understanding of how, much less why, we are in our current positions.

Someday, they'll understand.

Just not today.

I do applaud the enthusiasm but I also know that its an enthusiasm which countless others have had. They see quick dollar signs and nothing more.

 

Enthusiasm, youthful noob enthusiasm. Then you collect awhile and realise there are some mountains you are not going to move. There are some like the whole slabbing thing that I don't get nor care to.

 

And the people who send them to the TPG's would have no interest in being "cut out" of the equation.

Unless of course, you're assuming that a buyer could contact the US Mint through the Pitney Bowes fulfillment center and direct them to ship the items directly to the TPG's which would then upset the current haphazard flow of coins out of that center already.

 

Sadly its not just the young. I work with 40 and 50 yr olds that live paycheck to paycheck. They make the exact same as I do each year but waste it on interest loans, eating out, driving more car and living in more house than they can afford. Gotta have the latest greatest of everything that is yesterdays news in a week and worth 1/2 what they paid for. My favorite is watching them buy furniture on their mortage. Paying for a couch for 30yrs that you own for 5.

 

And have a lot of striking problems. Not enough material in the planchet to fill the design in the dies.

Careful that IS the argument we use for why we should drop the dollar bill and one of the arguments for getting rid of the cent, "it has worked in every other country".

They also want 25 cent gas, silver in their circulating coinage, free high speed internet and free healthcare.

Yes it came under question but the Sec of the Treasury actually does have the authority to change the designs of the gold bullion coins except the rev of the fifty dollar (one oz ) coin Title 31 US Code Sec 5112 (i) (A)
(A)have a design determined by the Secretary, except that the fifty dollar gold coin shall have—
(i) on the obverse side, a design symbolic of Liberty; and
(ii) on the reverse side, a design representing a family of eagles, with the male carrying an olive branch and flying above a nest containing a female eagle and hatchlings;

The design on the other coins is left up to the Sec. The 22KT Sacs were questioned and the Sec and Mint backed down rather than stand on their authority.

Actually they do, which is why they haven't announced it already. They are trying to get approval because the 3/4 oz spec is NOT authorized under the law. they will have to get that authorization or it won't happen.

Something interesting in the mintblog. They say that the Sec the section of sec 5112 that give the Sec the authority to change the size, fineness, and design of the gold coins is how they were able to create the 2009 UHR double eagle. Didn't that coin have a $20 face value? Yes it did. OK so it ISN'T legal. The law specifies the one oz coin to have a fifty dollar face value and the law give the Sec the authority to change the weight, fineness, design and size, it does NOT give him the authority to change the denomination. No where in the current law is a twenty dollar coin of ANY composition authorized.

 

Since the US Mint makes a lot of products tailored solely to collectors/investors and not to use for money. Shouldn't the voices of the people who buy their goods matter. We do have young people who support us, they want to have a greater say in the products that the US Mint sells to them. We shouldn't just take whatever the US Mint throws at us. If we just blindly take whatever the US Mint throws at us, then what's the point of being involved in this hobby. Hobbies are meant for creativity, not towing the line and going along to get along. Towing the line and going along to get along is something for politics, not for a hobby.

 

Good points, but the precedent established with the UHF $20 gold coin is there. Why should they announce the 24k Gold Kennedy, they didn't announce the clad/silver sets they've been surveying people about yet.

 

Well the US Mint would send some of the coins from the mint to the TPG and the TPG would send the coins to the fulfillment center.

 

Well, hey...best of luck to you! It's not my ballgame since I prefer old gold, have no interest in modern bullion, a 1/20th ounce coin is too small to grab my attention, and I dislike slabs. But I hope y'all get what you want.

 

They have made it plain that they WILL be making some kind of clad/silver sets but no details. They are still hush hush on the gold because they don't have authorization.

True but a precedent of "we will break the law when we want to" is not a very good precedent to stand on. Better to do things legally if you can.

 

Maybe you can add something to the petition about the mint doing a better job delivering the coins we already paid for months ago.

 

Laws are made to be interpreted and the law was interpreted to allow for a 2009 UHF $20