Tuesday, November 29, 2011

2011-P Olympic National Park Five Ounce Silver Uncirculated Coin

Posted by Mint News Blog | Filed Under: America the Beautiful Quarters

Today, November 29, 2011 at 12:00 Noon ET, the United States Mint will begin sales of the 2011-P Olympic National Park Five Ounce Silver Uncirculated Coin.

The reverse design of the coin depicts a Roosevelt elk standing on a gravel river bar of the Hoh River. A view of Mount Olympus appears in the background. This was designed by Susan Gamble and sculpted by Michael Gaudioso. The obverse carries the John Flanagan portrait of George Washington.

The coins are struck in 5 troy ounces of .999 silver, with incuse edge lettering indicating the bullion weight and fineness. The “P” mint mark for Philadelphia appears on the obverse, and the coins feature a special finish created through a vapor blasting technique. A bullion version of the coin released earlier this year lacks the mint mark and has a standard finish.

A maximum mintage of 35,000 coins has been established by the Mint, with an initial ordering limit of five coins per household. The price of each coin is $229.95.

This will be the eighth numismatic release for the America the Beautiful Five Ounce Silver Coins. All eight coins, including the first five dated 2010, have been released this year between April 28, 2011 and today. The previous coin featuring Glacier National Park was released just over a month ago on October 25. The rapid fire release of these costly coins may be partly responsible for the trend of diminishing sales.

When the first coin featuring Hot Springs National Park was released, initial demand was so strong that it took down the US Mint’s website. With an ordering limit of just one per household, the US Mint received orders for 25,000 coins within the opening days. Demand remained strong for the following coin featuring Yellowstone National Park, which had opening sales of 24,626. The next several releases showed diminishing initial sales of 20,511 for Yosemite, 19,300 for Grand Canyon, 14,759 for Mount Hood, and 9,549 for Gettysburg. The Glacier National Park coin showed a slight upswing, with 10,680 coins ordered during the opening days.

The three most recent releases still remain available for sale on the US Mint’s website. The coin closest to achieving a sell out is the Mount Hood coin with 25,471 sold out of the 27,000 maximum. The other issues have recent sales of 15,463 for Gettysburg and 12,574 for Glacier out of a maximum mintage of 35,000.

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Monday, November 28, 2011

2011 America the Beautiful Quarters Circulating Coin Set

Posted by Mint News Blog | Filed Under: America the Beautiful Quarters

On November 29, 2011 at 12:00 Noon ET, the US Mint will begin sales of the 2011 America the Beautiful Quarters Circulating Coin Set. The 10-coin set includes examples of each 2011-dated quarter from the Philadelphia and Denver Mints.

Specifically, each set includes the following coins:

  • 2011 P & D Gettysburg National Military Park Quarters
  • 2011 P & D Glacier National Park Quarters
  • 2011 P & D Olympic National Park Quarters
  • 2011 P & D Vicksburg National Military Park Quarters
  • 2011 P & D Chickasaw National Recreation Area Quarters

The coins are “circulating quality.” The appearance and condition of the coins will likely be similar to those found in the US Mint’s numismatic rolls or the uncirculated coins found through circulation channels.

The ten coins are packaged so that the coins can be easily removed for placement into an album or other display. Each set is priced at $9.95 plus applicable shipping and handling.

The US Mint separately offers the 2011 America the Beautiful Uncirculated Coin Set, which was released earlier this year on April 19, 2011. These sets contain the same ten coins listed above, but the US Mint refers to them as “uncirculated” and charges $21.95 per set. More specifically, this version of the set contains coins with the “brilliant finish” currently used for the annual United States Mint Uncirculated Coin Set, often referred to by collectors as the annual Mint Set.

The distinction between the Circulating Coin Set and Uncirculated Coin Set is a bit harder to explain and less noticeable than last year, when the two product types were launched. In 2010, the “uncirculated” coins carried a satin finish, which was created by sandblasting the faces of the dies and burnishing coin blanks before striking. These satin finish coins were more readily distinguishable by their frosted appearance.

Coin grading firms PCGS and NGC currently do not differentiate between the US Mint’s “brilliant finish” used for certain numismatic products and regular finish coins obtained from other channels. The two firms had made a distinction for the satin finish coins, which were denoted “satin finish” or “SMS”.

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Monday, November 28, 2011

2012 Native American Dollar

Posted by Mint News Blog | Filed Under: Other Coins

On Friday, the US Mint announced the design selection for the 2012 Native American Dollar. The theme for the design is “Trade Routes in the 17th Century”. This will represent the fourth in a series of annually rotating reverse designs which highlight the contributions and accomplishments of Native Americans.

The reverse design features a Native American and a horse in profile. There are horses running in the background, which are intended to represent the historical spread of the horse. Inscriptions read “United States of America” and “$1″. The reverse was designed by Thomas Cleveland and sculpted by Phebe Hemphill.

The obverse of the coin will continue to feature the portrait of Sacagawea and child designed by Glenna Goodacre. Inscriptions include “Liberty” and “In God We Trust”. On the edge of the coin are the date, mint mark, and “E Pluribus Unum”.

Originally, the US Mint had prepared thirteen different design candidates for the reverse of the coin. These included seven designs that were traditional depictions and six that were based on the ledger style of Native American art. Both the Commission of Fine Arts and the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee had praised the inclusion of the ledger art designs, however ultimately both lent their official recommendation to the same traditional depiction that was ultimately selected.

[See coverage of the CFA and CCAC recommendations.]

The CFA had recommended some simplification to the design, suggesting the removal of the three running horses in the background. They also recommended moving the “$1″ inscription closer to the rim of the coin, in the same circumferential zone as the other text. The US Mint did not follow either of these recommendations.

By law, Native American Dollars must account for at least 20% of all $1 coins minted and issued for each year. However, there is no legal requirement for the special ordering period from Federal Reserve Banks, as mandated for the Presidential Dollars series. As a result, the US Mint has primarily distributed Native American Dollars through the Direct Ship Program. With the removal of credit card ordering and the new $12.50 fulfillment fee for the program, the US Mint might run into problems distributing the entire required production of the 2012 Native American Dollars. We will have to wait and see this situation plays out in the coming year.

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Friday, November 25, 2011

25th Anniversary Set Update

Posted by Mint News Blog | Filed Under: Silver Eagles

It seems that the majority of orders for the 25th Anniversary Silver Eagle Set have shipped, although each day a few collectors report their orders finally shipping. The last post on this topic has continued to be updated by readers with their latest status, shipping dates, and other observations. The post has now reached 879 comments. I wanted to start a fresh post with some brief updates and for collectors to provide new status reports.

To recap, the 25th Anniversary Sets went on sale at the US Mint on Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 12:00 Noon ET. After just four and a half hours, the Mint received orders for the entire 100,000 maximum production. Orders continued to be accepted for placement on a waiting until the following morning. The Mint started shipping the first sets to collectors the week of November 7, a few weeks earlier than expected.

Unique Coins of the Set

The sets are particularly desirable because of the inclusion of two coins (or possibly three) unique to the product offering. The confirmed unique coins are the 2011-S Uncirculated Silver Eagle and the 2011-P Reverse Proof Silver Eagle. Each of these coins have a mintage of only 100,000 pieces, which rank as the second lowest mintage American Silver Eagles ever issued by the US Mint.

As collectors have started to examine their sets, some have identified a potential difference for the bullion Silver Eagle included. Some initial reports found a difference in the finish compared to bullion coins issued through the regular channels. Later reports have identified a “dent” or “dimple” on the middle tail feather of the eagle on the reverse, which seems to appear only on the bullion coins included in the 25th Anniversary Sets.

Capsules Opening During Shipping

There have been many reports about the plastic capsules containing the coins opening during shipping. In some cases, readers have reported finding individuals coins rattling around unprotected within the box. This is understandably upsetting and particularly unfortunate for this product offering since if returned for quality issues, it is probably unlikely that replacements sets could be issued.

Third Party Grading

Some collectors are choosing to send their sets to third party grading companies such as PCGS or NGC for encapsulation and grading. In order to have all five coins in the set identified as coming from the 25th Anniversary Sets, the companies have required submission of the coins within the sealed US Mint shipping boxes.

Some early information seems to indicate a high proportion of coins grading MS70 and PR70. This is surprising since the coins must be submitted “blind,” i.e. collectors do not have an opportunity to view the coins and select the best ones for grading. It is also surprising given the problem of opening capsules mentioned above.

For the 2006 20th Anniversary Sets, around 10-20% of coins seemed to be receiving the top grades. For the 2011 25th Anniversary Sets, the earliest population report data available shows more than 50% of coins receiving the top grades. This may change or shift lower as time passes and more coins are graded, but it is certainly something to watch if contemplating paying a big premium for top graded coins.

Separately, there has been some controversy about policies for returning the original Mint packaging. You can read more in this CoinUpdate article.

Waiting List Status

As mentioned, the US Mint accepted orders for placement on a waiting list after orders were received for the maximum mintage. Orders are fulfilled from the waiting list in first-in, first-out sequence in the event that sets become available due to the order cancellations. The waiting list period seems to be from around 4:30 PM ET to the following morning around 10:15 AM ET.

There have been reports of some orders placed near the end of the waiting list period having been canceled by the Mint. Presumably, there were so many waiting list orders ahead in the list that these would have no chance of being fulfilled. There still seem to be a large number of collectors with waiting list orders that have not yet been canceled. When checking the status with the US Mint’s Track Order function, these will say ” Your order request is in process.”

The latest order numbers that have been reported as “in stock and reserved” or “shipped” seem to be #38382xxx. If anyone has any later order numbers that have shipped or other information, as always, please post in the comments.

415 Comments
Tuesday, November 22, 2011

2011 Proof Silver Eagle Sold Out

Posted by Mint News Blog | Filed Under: Silver Eagles

In an unexpected development, the 2011 Proof Silver Eagle has sold out. The status was changed on the US Mint’s website this morning, and I have received confirmation that the product is indeed no longer available for sale.

For several hours today, the 2011 Glacier Five Ounce Silver Uncirculated Coins were also marked as sold out. In this case, the status was changed in error and later corrected. These coins remain available for sale.

The 2011 Proof Silver Eagles were first available for sale on June 30, 2011. The coins were initially priced at $59.95 and subject to an ordering limit of 100 per household. The limit was completely removed on July 15, 2011. Pricing for the product was adjusted on two occasions, first increased to $68.45 and then decreased to $58.95, which remained in effect for the remainder of the availability period.

The last reported sales published today on CoinUpdate were 850,000. The coins were also included in the 25th Anniversary Silver Eagle Set, which had a mintage of 100,000.

The United States Mint did not indicate a maximum mintage or anticipated sales ending date for the individual proof Silver Eagle. The product was actually featured in the US Mint’s 2011 Holiday Catalog, received by most collectors last week. The unexpected conclusion of sales is surprising considering there is more than a month left in the 2011-calendar year and with the holiday shopping season yet to begin. It seems like extremely poor planning on the part of the Mint to not have the coins available through the end of the year.

To make the situation even more curious, the West Point Mint was reported to have produced additional proof Silver Eagles for the 25th Anniversary Sets in late August and September. During the same time period, it would have made sense to produce additional proof coins for individual sales. This determination could have been made by examining inventory levels and current sales trends.

For several years running, the availability of the Proof Silver Eagle has been erratic and inconsistent. This is not an ideal situation, as the product is one of the US Mint’s most popular numismatic offerings. In 2008, proof Silver Eagle sales were unexpectedly suspended in August and never resumed, as a result of a shortage of silver planchets. In 2009, the product offering was completely canceled, due to ongoing high demand for bullion coins and planchet supply issues. In 2010, there were doubts about the status of the offering for much of the year. Sales finally began very late in the year on November 19 and only continued until December 28.

Popular products which unexpectedly sell out at the US Mint have sometimes experienced higher secondary market prices. The unmet demand from collectors and dealers who intended to place final orders serves to push up prices temporarily or sometimes for an extended period of time. In the coming days, we will see if premiums develop for 2011 Proof Silver Eagles.

As a final point, the unexpected sell out of the proof Silver Eagles may be an indication of things to come. If the US Mint is not properly managing production based on inventory levels and sales trends, it is possible that other 2011-dated numismatic products could experience early and unexpected sell outs. If this occurs for products such as the collectible uncirculated Gold Eagle, collectible uncirculated Silver Eagle, or First Spouse Gold Coins, new mintage lows could be established.

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