2014 platinum eagle bullion coin soon available

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Today the US mint announced it is soon to begin distribution of a one ounce American eagle bullion (not proof) platinum coin for 2014, the first such since 2008:

 

mint news release

 

Unlike in 2008 when it was also available in three fractional sizes, tenth, quarter, and half ounce, all the 2014s will be one full troy ounce.

 

The mint is selling them starting March 10th, but only to authorized distributors, continuing to insert, in my opinion, a handful of unnecessary middlemen, who will mark them up for sale to the public, perhaps after picking out the best examples to send in for grading for their own accounts. With the mint's new ordering system in place, which is able to handle retail orders in quantity and expeditiously, it is highly anomalous to force buyers to go through an extra layer of middlemen, with another layer of shipping costs, middlemen who add no value, but in fact are liable to abusing their positions by both unseemly profiteering, and by cherrypicking, as some of them have done in recent years with other mint issues.

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New details about the forthcoming 2014 one ounce American Platinum Eagle bullion coin are emerging, from an article in Coin World by Paul Gilkes:

 

PaulGilkes

 

They are being produced at the West Point mint facility, but the presence of any W mint mark was not mentioned.

 

The planchets were supplied by the Perth Mint of Australia, although the ultimate source of the platinum is not specified.

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Apmex already has the 2014 bullion platinum American eagle listed for advance sale, about a hundred bucks over spot, with a $10 discount per coin if you're getting a roll of 20. Spot today is in the neighborhood of 1480 per ounce.