Well, that was weird... 0

[jtryka]

So yesterday like many others I went to the mint website at noon to hopefully order one set of the reverse proof silver eagles for my collection.  The website was way more disjointed than the past few times with the Morgan dollar redos, but perhaps that was the intention.  I had to keep reloading, keep checking out and filling in my information, all told, it took me about 35 minutes and still had no confirmation from the mint website, but I got an alert that my credit card was charged and sure enough I received a confirmation e-mail while the website was still giving me error messages.  The same thing happened to a friend of mine, and apparently he got no e-mail, but tried to order later and it said he couldn't because the limit was one coin, so apparently he got one already.  Then another friend ordered (at least he thinks he got one) but he placed an order an hour or two after they went on sale since they still showed they were available.  So, perhaps the mint making their website more dysfunctional enabled more regular collectors to actually order this limited mintage set (it was 125k, so perhaps not too limited).

[Alex in PA.]

On 9/14/2021 at 9:05 AM, jtryka said:

I had to keep reloading, keep checking out and filling in my information,

Seems that that is Standard Operating Procedure for the US Mint.  It's so sad that a web site with such popularity and doing such a good business couldn't get this straightened out.

[VKurtB]

On 9/14/2021 at 8:42 AM, Alex in PA. said:

Seems that that is Standard Operating Procedure for the US Mint.  It's so sad that a web site with such popularity and doing such a good business couldn't get this straightened out.

Remember healthcare.gov? Yeahhhhh.

[RWB]

Low bidder.

[valk1999]

On 9/14/2021 at 9:05 AM, jtryka said:

So yesterday like many others I went to the mint website at noon to hopefully order one set of the reverse proof silver eagles for my collection.  The website was way more disjointed than the past few times with the Morgan dollar redos, but perhaps that was the intention.  I had to keep reloading, keep checking out and filling in my information, all told, it took me about 35 minutes and still had no confirmation from the mint website, but I got an alert that my credit card was charged and sure enough I received a confirmation e-mail while the website was still giving me error messages.  The same thing happened to a friend of mine, and apparently he got no e-mail, but tried to order later and it said he couldn't because the limit was one coin, so apparently he got one already.  Then another friend ordered (at least he thinks he got one) but he placed an order an hour or two after they went on sale since they still showed they were available.  So, perhaps the mint making their website more dysfunctional enabled more regular collectors to actually order this limited mintage set (it was 125k, so perhaps not too limited).

I had the same issue, many crashes and asking for downloads and pictures of trucks, etc.  I was about to give up since it was at least 30 minutes after they went on sale when I got an email showing my order was accepted.  Got the confirmation about 4 hours later and my credit card was charged. I have no idea which web order crash resulted in the sale.

I got an email earlier in the morning from Pinehurst offering $400 for the set.  I’m sure there were others offering premiums as well.  This morning Pinehurst lowered the offer to $350 since there was an overwhelming acceptance of their offer.  This business model is attracting flippers like blowflies.  Collectors are being screwed over and forced to spend bigger bucks if they didn’t get the coin or set directly from the Mint.

Just had to vent off a little steam.  I wish there was some way that the Mint could screen out the flippers but I’m sure it would be impossible.

 

 

[Alex in PA.]

On 9/14/2021 at 10:37 AM, valk1999 said:

Collectors are being screwed over and forced to spend bigger bucks if they didn’t get the coin or set directly from the Mint.

This has been the 'system' for quite some time.  It's almost as if it were set up this way.

[124Spider]

On 9/14/2021 at 9:04 AM, Alex in PA. said:

This has been the 'system' for quite some time.  It's almost as if it were set up this way.

I have to agree.

For whatever reason, I found the set intriguing, so I thought I'd give it a shot.  Having braved the mess for the five Morgans and one Peace "dollar," I had low expectations.  And they managed to underperform my low expectations.  The site crashed less than a minute in, and I spent the next 67 minutes rowing through the error messages and roadblocks.  I finally succeeded, but it doesn't make me want to play in the future.

The mystery to me is why the mint prices these things at less than half what the market seems to be willing to pay (also the case with the Morgans and Peace "dollars").  EBay was full of people selling them for $400-$1100 right after they sold out (at about 2:30pm EDT), and even the auctions quickly went well north of $300.

Mark

Edited September 16, 2021 by 124Spider

[Conder101]

On 9/14/2021 at 9:05 AM, jtryka said:

So, perhaps the mint making their website more dysfunctional enabled more regular collectors to actually order this limited mintage set

I said that on another forum, the mint found a way to keep low mintage high demand items on sale for a longer period of time........make the site crash more.

 

On 9/15/2021 at 11:09 PM, 124Spider said:

The mystery to me is why the mint prices these things at less than half what the market seems to be willing to pay

There are limits to what the mint is allowed to charge, or at least their used to be.

[Numismatic, A.A.S.]

It was a No Go.

[robec1347]

It took me 10 minutes to get the set in the bag and another 53 minutes fighting crashes, bad handshakes, timeouts, etc before I finally found success. It was much worse than the Peace dollar experience. 

[jtryka]

On 9/17/2021 at 11:53 PM, robec1347 said:

It took me 10 minutes to get the set in the bag and another 53 minutes fighting crashes, bad handshakes, timeouts, etc before I finally found success. It was much worse than the Peace dollar experience. 

Agreed, it seemed like each time got worse after the second Morgan group, which I think was the smoothest experience of the dysfunctional bunch...