2012 Platinum Eagle sold today

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The proof 2012 American Platinum Eagle was placed on sale by the US mint starting at 12 noon today, with first shipping date stated and slated to be August 16th, price $1692 plus 4.95 S & H.

 

Meanwhile the last couple hundred out of an original 15,000 authorized mintage of the 2011 A.P.E. are still being offered, for the same price.

 

The reverse design of this year's coin shows the usual depiction of a New England minuteman, a design that has been criticized as lacking much artistic merit, and as unimaginative. Those criticisms can be seen in the comments section of this Coin Update article that reported the results of voting by the CCAC, the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee:

 

Coin Update 20 Feb 2012

 

The minuteman was design number 4, and received 13 votes. The other designs in closest competition were numbers 1 & 2, getting 9 and 11 votes.

 

What nobody seems to have commented on is that designs 1 & 2 share many elements, a Miss Liberty with ornate shield and spear, and the two of them combined received 20 votes compared to 13 for the minuteman. Therefore, a superior way to have handled the situation, in my opinion, would have entailed a second round of voting, perhaps involving only numbers 2 and 4. My personal first choice would have been design number 1, but I'd have immediately switched my vote to number 2 versus 4. By splitting the vote for the two similar Miss Liberties, the CCAC ended up recommending an arguably inferior design.

 

 

[Mr.Mcknowitall]

Now that is a very good and very logical analysis. You are to be commended.

While I am not an afficionado of these series, or educated enough to comment , I certainly appreciate an easy to understand synopsis.

 

Thank You! You have even manage to spark an interest in me for these coins.

 

So, what the heck is platinum and why would I want it in a coin?

 

Hold my interest......

 

Respectfully,

John Curlis

[JIM F.]

I bought the 2009 and 2010 issues when they came out. The mintages were lower than the 2011 and the 2012 (?). The fact that 2011 remain unsold indicates lack of demand at the issue price.

 

 

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I bought the 2009 and 2010 issues when they came out. The mintages were lower than the 2011 and the 2012 (?). The fact that 2011 remain unsold indicates lack of demand at the issue price.

 

A case can be made for an opposite conclusion about the 2011 platinum proof eagle. There has been a surprisingly strong demand at the issue price, because with only about 200 to go, it can sell out all 15,000 pieces, and will then have sold the second highest quantity after the first year of issue, 1997, a year when platinum averaged less than $400 per ounce.

 

Right now the second highest sales number of proof platinum eagles was 1998 with 14,912, but 2011 has an excellent chance of surpassing that number, assuming the mint can supply enough coins for that purpose.

 

The maximum authorized mintage for the 2012 A.P.E. is the same as 2011, 15,000 pieces, but I personally have doubts this year's will ultimately sell out.

[delta]

Now that is a very good and very logical analysis. You are to be commended. While I am not an afficionado of these series, or educated enough to comment , I certainly appreciate an easy to understand synopsis. Thank You! You have even manage to spark an interest in me for these coins. So, what the heck is platinum and why would I want it in a coin? Hold my interest...... Respectfully, John Curlis

 

Thanks much John, your pleasant comments in these NGC forums are most encouraging. It might spark your interest to know that platinum is just about the densest of all metals, heavier per unit volume than gold, and so is the most concentrated precious metal available in coin form. There are two cousins of platinum with slightly higher densities, iridium and osmium, but they are not appropriate for coins.

 

Another point is that platinum is very much rarer than gold, and no large stockpiles are available, because the relatively small quantities produced are consumed for industrial uses, for jewelry, and for miscellaneous other uses.

 

A third thing to possibly pique your interest is American Platinum Eagles are beautifully attractive, and for some years had exceedingly tiny mintages, giving them strong potential as numismatic items, and a bunch of them were included by Eric Jordan and John Maben in their recent book about the 50 best modern U.S. coins.

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The latest sales total for the 2011 APE is 14,836, 164 short of the authorized maximum 15,000. We just don't know for sure if the US mint happens to have 164 additional coins in stock, but if that many are still available, and sales are not arbitrarily ended, it's almost inevitable a sellout is coming, probably by the end of August.

 

Of the 2012 APE, 2461 have been sold since its debut on August 9th, all sales figures courtesy of Coin Update News.

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The 2011 American Platinum Eagle is no longer on sale at the US Mint. We probably won't have the final mintage for a while, but it'll obviously be very close to 15K, and the coin will end up either in second or third position among the highest mintage proof APEs, after the 1997, and perhaps the 1998.