Wednesday, November 3, 2010

2009 Silver Quarters Set Back on Sale

Posted by Mint News Blog | Filed Under: DC US Territories Quarters


After the product apparently sold out last week, the 2009 DC & US Territories Quarters Silver Proof Set was put back on sale on the US Mint’s website.

The product contains 90% silver versions of the quarters featuring the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands. Pricing remains the same $29.95 that has been in place since the sets were originally issued more than 19 months ago.

At the current spot price of silver ($24.80 as of the writing of this post), the silver value of the coins included in the set is $26.91. Therefore, the product price represents a premium above silver value of $3.08 or 11.45%.

By comparison, the 2010 America the Beautiful Quarters Silver Proof Set, which contains 5 silver quarters with a silver value of $22.42 is priced at $32.95. This makes for a premium of $10.53 or 46.96%.

On a few past occasions, products which seemingly sold out at the US Mint have been put back on sale. In some instances the products quickly sold out again, while in others the products remained available for some time.

The latest US Mint sales report shows sales of 298,612 recorded through October 31. Assuming production was a round 300,000 sets, perhaps another 1,388 sets remain.

2010 Proof Gold Eagles Sales

Separately, the latest sales figures for the 2010 Proof Gold Eagles are available. A summary is included below showing the sales for the week, the total sales to date, and the percentage of the product limit that has now been sold.

Week Total Percent
1 ounce 3,698 25,000 100.00%
1/2 ounce 373 3,499 23.33%
1/4 ounce 246 4,006 25.04%
1/10 ounce 609 9,791 36.26%
4 coin set 1,366 12,785 32.78%

For the full weekly sales report visit Coin Update News.

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Wednesday, October 27, 2010

2009 DC & US Territories Silver Proof Set Sold Out

Posted by Mint News Blog | Filed Under: Annual Sets, DC US Territories Quarters


Yesterday, the 2009 District of Columbia & U.S. Territories Quarters Silver Proof Set sold out at the United States Mint. This product originally went on sale March 23, 2009, meaning it has been available for more than 19 months.

The six coin set had been the focus of some recent attention due to its rising intrinsic value. Each 90% silver quarter within the set contains 0.18084 ounces of silver, yielding a total silver content of 1.08504 ounces per set. When silver was trading at its recent high of $24.49 per ounce, the silver value of the coins included in each set had reached $26.57. This was approaching the US Mint issue price of $29.95.

The 2009 silver quarter sets were also priced $3 below the 2010 America the Beautiful Quarters Silver Proof Set. In addition to the lower price, the 2009 set also contained six coins compared to five for the current year set, adding to the bargain factor.

Despite the long period of availability, the last reported sales for the 2009 DC & US Territories Silver Proof Set come in at 298,562. This actually represents the lowest sales for one of the US Mint’s separate 90% silver quarters sets.

Since the introduction of the separate 90% silver quarter sets in 2004, sales have ranged from a high of 672,662 (2007) to a low of 429,021 (2008).

The six 90% silver DC & US Territories Quarters were also available within the full 2009 Silver Proof Set. Sales had reached 694,406 when product offering concluded on June 15, 2010.

Coin Update News: Latest US Mint Sales Report

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Thursday, June 24, 2010

Sales Ending for D.C. & U.S. Territories First Day Coin Covers

Posted by Mint News Blog | Filed Under: Coin Covers, DC US Territories Quarters

Next week on June 30, 2010 at 5:00 PM ET, the United States Mint will conclude sales of the 2009 District of Columbia & U.S. Territory Quarters First Day Coin Covers.

All six of the covers are still available for sale currently, including the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands. Each cover is priced at $14.95 each.

These products may be worth a look since they represent the last First Day Coin Covers produced for quarters for the foreseeable future. The US Mint previously confirmed that they will not be creating similar products for the new America the Beautiful Quarters Program. This final year of covers also marks an improvement in design from the somewhat bland template used for the State Quarter covers. Finally, the covers boast relatively low production runs, as compared to the Presidential Dollar and State Quarters Coin Covers.

The Presidential Dollar Coin Covers have sold as many as 50,000 units for the initial releases of the series. Current releases have shown a decline in popularity, but still top more than 20,000 units each. The earliest State Quarter Coin Covers sold 100,000 per state before descending to lower levels. I wasn’t table to find any sales figures for the later years of the series, but this old Mint News Blog post has some interim sales figures for the 2007 covers, showing sales above 20,000 for each state.

The last reported sales figures for the DC & U.S. Territories covers are included below. These numbers include sales through June 20, 2010. This week’s full sales report is available on Coin Update News.

DC & US TERRITORIES COIN COVERS
District of Columbia 20,009
Puerto Rico 16,943
Guam 13,420
American Samoa 11,821
U.S. Virgin Islands 10,665
Northern Mariana Islands 10,187

The figures above should place the total sales solidly below even the lowest production State Quarter and Presidential Dollar Coin Covers. Time will tell whether these low numbers will create a new allure for these covers on the secondary market.

Recently completed eBay auction show some of the tougher to find State Quarter First Day Coin Covers selling around $30 to $40 each. About a year ago, I recall some covers selling for more than $100 each. On the low end of the spectrum, some of the high production covers sell for as little as $4 or $5 each. It bears mentioning that there seems to be somewhat of a thin market for these covers at present. Most are listed for sale with fixed Buy It Now prices and the sell through rate is low.

There may already be some measure of speculation taking place for the DC & U.S. Territory covers. Ever since the US Mint announced the impending conclusion of the offering, the pace of sales has increase to 100 or more covers per location per week. In the last week nearly 200 covers were sold for each location . Prior to the announcement, sales had been running about 30-40 per week for most issues.

34 Comments
Monday, April 19, 2010

Sales End for Northern Mariana Islands Quarters Bags and Rolls

Posted by Mint News Blog | Filed Under: Bags and Rolls, DC US Territories Quarters


Today, the United States Mint ended sales of 2009 Northern Mariana Islands Quarter bags and rolls. The end of sales coincided with the beginning of sales for the new 2010 Hot Springs National Park Quarter bags and rolls.

The Northern Mariana Islands Quarter bags and rolls first went on sale back on November 27, 2009. The US Mint offered two roll sets, 100-coin bags, and 1000-coin bags. A few days after the start of sales, the mintages for the quarters were revealed to be lowest for a circulation strike quarter since 1960. The 2010-P had a mintage of 35,200,000 and the 2001-D had a mintage of 37,600,000.

One of the interesting aspects of the NMI Quarter besides the low mintage, is the proportion of the mintage that was distributed directly to coin collectors through the US Mint’s numismatic bags and rolls. The table below shows the most recent unit sales for bags and roll of Northern Mariana Islands Quarters.

Northern Mariana Quarters Bags and Rolls Sales
unit sales quarters per product total quarters
100-coin bag (P) 7,733 100 773,300
1000-coin bag (P) 1,477 1,000 1,477,000
100-coin bag (D) 7,354 100 735,400
1000-coin bag (D) 772 1,000 772,000
Two Roll Set 33,639 80 2,691,120
Total 6,448,820

The US Mint sold 6,448,820 quarters through their bags and rolls offerings out of the overall mintage of 72,800,000. This means that numismatic sales represented 8.86% of the total mintage.

Breaking the figures down by mint mark shows an even higher proportion of the lower mintage Philadelphia strike in the hands of collectors. Bags and rolls sales included a total of 3,595,860 2010-P Northern Mariana Islands Quarters out of the total mintage of 35,200,000. In this case, quarters sold through bags and rolls represent 10.22% of the mintage.

During the prior 50 State Quarters Program, I don’t believe that the percentage of each quarter’s mintage sold through numismatic bags and rolls was ever this significant. I was able to find data for a few of the 2008 quarters and calculated the percentages to be around 2%.

I think this will be an interesting trend to watch. If mintages continue to decline for this year’s quarters and collectors continue to purchase the same or higher quantities through the US Mint’s numismatic offerings, even greater proportions of each quarter’s total mintage will be purchased and held by collectors. This could have implications for the values of today’s low mintage coins and the notion of circulating coins, as fewer of them ever have the chance to actually circulate.

18 Comments
Monday, January 11, 2010

Northern Mariana Islands Quarter Coin Cover

Posted by Mint News Blog | Filed Under: Coin Covers, DC US Territories Quarters

The US Mint will release the Northern Mariana Islands Quarter First Day Coin Cover on January 12, 2010 at 12:00 Noon ET. This will be the final coin cover in the DC & US Territories Quarters Program.

Each cover will include two 2010 Northern Mariana Islands Quarters, one each from the first day of mintage at the Philadelphia and Denver Mint facilities. The coins are mounted on a display card with a 44-cent Flag stamp. The cancellation will be November 30, 2009, Saipan CMNI, representing the first day the quarters were released into circulation.

The covers are priced at $14.95 each and will be limited to 20,000 units. The US Mint product page is already available here.

The other First Day Coin Covers issued for the DC & US Territories Quarters Program all remain available for sale on the US Mint’s website. As of the most recent US Mint sales report, the District of Columbia cover sold 17,887 units, the Puerto Rico cover sold 14,747, the Guam cover sold 11,216, the America Samoa cover sold 9,553, and the US Virgin Islands cover sold 7,395.

The first three releases of the series had a maximum production limits of 25,000 units each. The maximum was reduced to 20,000 units for subsequent releases. It has not yet been confirmed whether First Day Coin Covers will be offered for the upcoming America the Beautiful Quarters.

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