SilverTowne Melts Thousands of Gold First Spouse & Commems

So, if you had some extra First Spouse coins at this point, would you
a) try to sell them on ebay for a slight premium over melt.
b) Sell them as bullion to a melter
c) hold them to see if the melting causes their value to go up

Seems to me that there's no harm in trying a) before b)
c) seems like a long shot.

How long does it take before the effect of melting on a coin population is known? It seems it would take decades.

 

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Good point Dreamer now here's another angle.

Shall I call this "pseudo scamming"?

List them on ebay with a link to the article about SilverTowne melting them down.

How many were saved? Gold is going UP! These may be in more demand than a 1909SVDB before long! Get yours NOW!


Unfortunately, I can see it happening.

clembo

 

I think the 1st Spouse coins as a another gimmick mint failure...

Flame away

 

the spouse coins are best off being as rare as possible.

 

Yeah, I never got any for my 1st spouse grading service to grade, New Arizona Grading Service, NAGS has not even graded one coin, so if you see any, it's a fake slab.

Has the Hartford Area Grading Service had any submissions?

 

The first spouses are the numismatic equivalent of fat girls at a bar in a desert military base. Scarcity is key to respect!

 

I like the way they look, some of these are knock outs. I am going to collect an unc set directly from the mint. The melting is great news for me, I will probably give this set to grandkids in 35 years. That will be a stunning set. I assure you that there will be some key coins from these early years (though the mint seem to be stubbornly refusing to take down coins that are no longer selling).

 

The real problem with the spouse coins is not that they're too common... it's that they're too expensive for the majority of casual collectors. I think that would be easier to sell if they went with say, 1/4 oz. gold coins instead, or maybe even as one person on this board suggested, silver dollars. A lot more people could collect them and the Mint would actually be making a higher total profit on them.

Reminds me of the classic illustration of volume vs. per item profit (maybe a bit dated now lol): "The reason Tom Cruise gets paid millions of dollars to act in a movie is not because he can get 5 people to pay $1 million each to see it; it's because he can get 1 million people to pay $5 each to see it."

 

Apparently the legislation authorizing the First Spouse coins says the Mint must offer the coins for sale for a period of one year from the date of issue or until they sell the maximum mintage, whichever is first.

 

Ahhhh, thank you so much for that info

 

I posted this story over in the Coin Chat Forum but figured it applied over here as well.

When the first spouse coins were first released, I scraped up enough money to purchase 2 of each coin... one for my set and one to trade for sets that I was not "lucky" enough to buy in time. Like most coins of limited production from the mint, there was always a race to how fast you could buy the coins before they sold out. Now I have these 4 coins, that nobody wants, let alone, nobody can afford.... and nobody is buying the newest coins. My point being.... I bought the coins thinking that every first spouse coin will sell out and if I missed one, I could trade one of the ones I have for one that I missed. Sounds like buying future first spouse coins will not be a problem and I will always be one of the "lucky" ones! :headbang: Like Dreamer said over in Coin Chat and Clembo said over here, I can only hope that these will be rarities later on and become high in demand as the years go on.

On a side note, I bit the bullet and bought both the Monroe coins, but can't see how I can continue at these prices. What a disappointment because I really think these coins are beautiful and will make a great set to pass onto my kids.....I have to have kids first, but they are too expensive!

 

I am focusing all of my coin budget on these, and I will probably sell a few things to keep up. Even at that it is really a stretch. And that is just the unc's.

 

Please clarify, kids or Monroes.

 

I agree with you on the failure part, but you can't blame the mint. They were mandated by Congress to produce this series. You can argue whether it was worth having the series, but it was unequivocally idiotic to require them to be half-ounce gold coins. (in my opinion). I wonder if anyone involved with the original legislation gave any thought to the total cost of the series.

 

As a father of two kids, let me clarify that kids are WAY more expensive than collecting the First Spouse series.

The total cost depends on your income level, but for two-parent households in the middle income group $39,100 to $65,800 the total cost of raising one child to age 18 is $170,000 and these are 2001 dollars. This does not include any college expenses. See original article here.

 

Well I sure do hope for you that collect these that some of the ones you are holding rise in value. That would be great for sure. But with the new gold prices, I guess new ones are going to be expensive.

 

like they say at the country club "it keeps the riff raff out"

 

Thats exactly what I mean.... kids?....Coins?....Kids?.... Coins?.... Decisions, Decisions! Which is the lesser of two evils!

I am only kidding of course. As much as I enjoy collecting coins, I do realize that as my wife and I start to raise a family that collecting the expensive coins will become less and less. It wasn't until about 3 years ago that I was able to purchase my first gold coin. Then 2 years ago I bought my first gold AGE set. This was an exciting time for me because as a collector nearly my whole life, I never would have thought that I would be able to afford a gold coin set, let alone one gold coin.

As for the first spouse series, when the prices were less, I could save enough money per quarter for both the unc and proof sets. Now that option is becoming harder to realize and adding kids to the mix will only make it that much tougher. I was just trying to put together a nice set to pass on to my kids and like someone else said on this thread, I will continue to do what I need to do to purchase these coins for as long as I can.

My biggest dilemma as a collector is at what price point do you say enough is enough and put off purchasing these coins.

 

I meant the kids... but I was just being facetious.

 

Well agree with you on that. If they just had to be gold, I'd wish they'd not gone bigger than 1/4 oz... even better would be silver dollars, then the Mint would be selling them easily and almost anyone who wanted to own them could.

The whole point of the series, in theory, was to earn profit by selling these to collectors... then they make the gold content so high most collectors can't afford them. Bullion investors don't want them because the premium over their melt is too high. End result being most of those who can afford them, don't want them, and most of those that want them, can't afford them. Perfect recipe for failure.

Maybe Congress will see the light and amend the legislation... write your congressman!