Tired of hearing about these sets

First and foremost, I do not collect ASE's and probably never will as I don't have an interest in them. I am just tired of hearing people complain about this set, ok the mintage was somewhat low, limit per customer seemed a bit high for its mintage, price was fair (mint price)and the secondary market prices are in the clouds.

Even myself, a non-collector of these coins, feel that the limit the mint placed for orders were a bit high. But that is my opinion which I know will not be shared by others. A limit of no more than 2 would have allowed for more collectors to have a chance at purchasing a set and it would of made it a bit more difficult for the profiteers. While it wouldnt completely eliminate the profiteers, it would still allow for more actual collectors to have a better chance of obtaining a set without having to pay the largely inflated secondary market prices.

Many say that its the american way when speaking about profiteers, but is it not the same as "scalping"? I ask this because I have seen several posts on the forums saying that the poster feels its the same thing. If caught scalping tickets for events such as a rock concert, the police dont just look the other direction, they toss you in jail. In reality, the secondary market sales of these ASE sets are nothing more than typical retail operations, buy low, sell high, pocket the profit. I have no problems with that at all, my problem is the order limit the mint had set, a lower limit would of allowed more people a chance at owning one of these sets. According to one article I recently read, the average order for these sets were 3 per order and they had sold out in 4.5 hours, while a lower ordering limit may of prolonged the sell out, it would of only lasted minutes longer.

My final thoughts about the sales of this ASE set is that regardless of the limit per order, if you did not have the free time to constantly hit redial on your phone or to sit in front of the PC screen with hopes of finalizing your order, you would not have been able to purchase one of these sets. Those who did were most likely the ones that did not have to work that day so that they could dedicate the time needed to place the order. No matter what the mint had done (aside from increasing the mintage in combination with a lower order limit) these sets were destined to sell out extremely fast.

Those of you who collect this series and did not manage to purchase a set from the mint, I feel bad for you as you will now have to eitehr wait until the price of the sets level out, or pay the extremely high price that the secondary market has. At the time of writing this journal, there were currently 3 unopened lots of 5 ASE sets for sale in the market place.

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