In another thread I spoke about the US Mint kiosk at Union Station. It has many of the offerings that the Mint website has -- but no postage and no waiting. See http://www.cointalk.com/forum/t51790/ for more info. Today, I visited the other store that the US Mint operates -- it's in the lobby of a US Mint office -- 801 9th St NW, Wash DC. The guy behind the counter was pretty knowledgeable, and seemed to be somewhat of a collector himself. The biggest news (to me) is that he said that they'd be offering the new Lincoln Cents -- on May 14th only -- at exchange rate with no limit on the amount to be purchased. Yeah, I know it sounds too good to be true, but I'm just tellin' y'all what he told me. I kept asking "are you sure"? He said yes. He also said that at the end of the day (on May 14th) they will ship whatever leftover new cents they have remaining back to the Federal Reserve. He stressed: they are only going to have these cents for one day. He said they will be in US Mint rolls. The other cool thing about this place is that they had three "change" machines with the latest dollars and quarters. I.e., you can put in a $1 or $5 bill, and get back (depending on the machine) the equivalent amount in Harrison dollars, 2009 Sac dollars, or 2009 Puerto Rico quarters. There's no guarantee of mint mark, although the guy said they try to mix them. He said that as soon as the newer coin comes out, they remove the old one (e.g., no DC quarters there; and when Guam comes out, they'll remove the PR ones). That's the end of the Mint Report. (The rest of this is what I'm doing with the above information): The only PR Quarters I have are in P&D Mint Roll sets (which I will sell/flip when the price is right -- probably right after they sell out at the mint), so I don't have any for my quarter album. So I stuck a $5 bill in the machine, got myself 20 quarters. There was a mix of P & D, ranging from AU to MS. As for Lincoln cents on May 14 -- in another thread I said that I couldn't get them for anyone because (as they told me at the kiosk) the limit was 10 rolls per person and all 10 were spoken for. But at this place ** IF ** there truly isn't a limit, I'll try to get lots and lots, and if I succeed, I can get rolls for folks here (priority goes to those who will trade me Lincoln Log Cabin rolls). That's it for now!
You got me thinking that the Denver Mint gift shop may do the same thing, so I gave them a call and they told me they will not be offering the 2nd release Lincoln cents on the release day. Booo, I feel like I'm being discriminated against for living outside DC.
Office opens at 10am -- he said that early birds only need to get there around 9:45 . . . Again -- to all -- I'm just repeating what he told me. I still find it really hard to believe that one can purchase with no limit.
Major update -- major limit on Lincoln cents Type 2 I decided I'd go back every few days to see if anything was new. Today the lady behind the counter (a different person) told me there would be a limit of *3* rollsets (6 rolls) per person. (Frankly, this makes sense to me, because I read somewhere that that's what the limit would be in Indiana, and it didnt' seem right to have different limits -- but, sheesh, what if they have a gazillion extra when the line finishes???) If that's the case, I will not be able to pick up rolls for folks
