Mint's Curtailed Offerings for 2009

[astrostu]

Has anyone seen that the Mint will be cutting production of MANY of its bullion products next year (I hadn't seen this posted before, so my apologies if it has been ...)?

 

I just read this yesterday: mintnewsblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/us-mint-cuts-product-offerings-by-60_10.html . To summarize, the Mint will NOT produce:

 

American Buffalo Uncirculated Gold Coins - These are the versions offered by the US Mint with the "W" mint mark. All fractional denominations, 4 coin set, and the one ounce coin will be discontinued. No offerings will remain.

 

American Buffalo Proof Gold Coins - The fractional 1/2 oz, 1/4 oz, 1/10 oz coins and 4 coin set will be discontinued. Only the one ounce Proof coin will remain.

 

American Platinum Eagle Uncirculated Coins - These are the versions offered by the US Mint with the "W" mint mark. All fractional denominations, 4 coin set, and the one ounce coin will be discontinued. No offerings will remain.

 

American Platinum Eagle Proof Coins - The fractional 1/2 oz, 1/4 oz, 1/10 oz coins and 4 coin set will be discontinued. Only the one ounce Proof coin will remain.

 

American Gold Eagle Uncirculated Coins - These are the versions offered by the US Mint with the "W" mint mark. The fractional 1/2 oz, 1/4 oz, 1/10 oz coins and 4 coin set will be discontinued. Only the one ounce Proof coin will remain.

 

Presidential Dollar Coin Historical Signature Sets

 

Presidential Dollar Individual Proof Coins

 

50 State Quarter First Day Coin Covers

 

Greetings from America Portfolio and Card Sets

 

Coin and Die Sets

 

Collectible Spoons

 

 

I'm curious as to what folks think about this. My personal take is that I'm glad they're trimming the fat. I think some of these things were really pretty stupid, like the collectible spoons. Some were really excessive, like the prezzy-fun-bucks individaul proof coins, or the greetings from America things.

 

However, I'm not happy that they're discontinuing the fractional platinum proof coins. My bullion purchases from the Mint for the last few years have been 1 oz SAE proof and uncirculated, 1/4 oz GAE proof, and 1/10 oz PAE proof. The 1/4 oz gold and 1/10 oz platinum were of comparable prices, and it let me have the - what I considered to be very cool PAE - design for less than the cost of a full troy ounce of platinum. I realize that they likely didn't sell well compared to the stuff they're not trimming, but it would've been nice to still have these at least in proof form.

 

What I hope is the outcome of this is that the quality on the still-offered products increases. As in, no more proof coins showing up that are rattling around in their cases because they weren't packaged right (remember the SF Old Mint gold?, or the SAE 20th anniversary?).

[BillJones]

I welcome almost all reductions in mint offerings because the agency is just marketing too many coins. I am sorry to see the four piece Buffalo gold set disappear because it looking kind of neat. The trouble was the issue price was so far over the bullion melt price that I could rejected it out of hand.

[danno26]

I've read about this, but I'd like to know what will happen to the 10th anniversary Plat. set at the end of the year. Less than 20,000 sold out of 30,000 max.(last I looked) Will they be discontinued? Are 30,000 already minted?

[jgrinz]

I commented on it a while ago but I think the list is a lot longer than mentioned here ...

 

 

[ant]

i think they are stoping the smaller gold and plat to force people to buy the bigger more costly items which as mentioned are way over spot.

[michael]

i really could care less if they curtailed ALL OF their collector offerings

[michael]

no great loss

 

just a loss for the buyers of new mint product in huge quanities then submitting in bulk to pcgs/ngc to finally selling huge sometimes really huge!! value added plastic to registry plastic players

[astrostu]

I commented on it a while ago but I think the list is a lot longer than mentioned here ...

 

I actually found your post just now ... the subject line was something about the spoons. Your list didn't include anything that mine didn't. I'm still curious, though as to what the 300 products that they're cutting will be (the press release says they're cutting from 500 to 200).

[DC Dawg]

First of all...

50 State Quarter First Day Coin Covers

Greetings from America Portfolio and Card Sets

Coin and Die Sets

Collectible Spoons

These are all associated with the 50 State Quarters program that officially ended on the release of the Hawaii quarter. The Mint does plan to offer First Day Covers for the DC and Territories coins. The FDC's do sell while the other sets do not.

 

As far as the Presidential Dollar collectibles go... good bye and good riddance. The folks at the Mint went completely overboard adding all of these "collectibles." I expected to see them hawking these sets on late night television between the Ginsu knives and the piece of bent padded medal that will solve all of your fitness needs.

 

For the bullion issues, Mint sales figures for the uncirculated W collectibles did not sell well. All of those options will be discontinued in all metals.The demise of the proof fractionals is a result of the Mint's incompetence in being able to manage resources and they need the capacity to strike bullion coins. Hopefully, the new president will appoint a Mint director who knows what he or she is doing!

 

Scott

[wtc911coins]

I just saw that they cut the prices on first spouse gold coins I guess their sales where not very good so they lowered the price. I think the amount of coins the mint is sell are way to large and I think it good with a reduction as a sign of the times we live in.

[World Colonial]

If these items are being discontinued because they are not selling well (which is the only logically apparent reason), it is probably the economy. I bought a few of the 50 SQ proof sets at the beginning (but unfortunately was not smart enough to by the 1999 silver) but then realized that there was much better uses for my money and sold all of them plus many other items I had accumulated to put to better use.

 

I still like the SQ coins (though I have no plans to buy them again) but much of the other Mint products I consider overpriced and a waste of money. A collector could spend a fortune trying to buy even just the coins they spit out every year, much less the other stuff, to try to maintain a complete set.

 

The Mint is actually doing collectors a favor. Now collectors who were buying this stuff can spend this money on better numismatic material.