By Hubert Walker for CoinWeek ….
UPDATE, 9-16-15: According to a notice from the Treasury Department, 25,000 sets were sold within the first 10 minutes of availability. An hour later, over 40,000 had been sold. The Mint’s fulfillment center will begin shipping the first 25,000 now, with the remainder to ship out sometime in October. The website functioned normally.
UPDATE, 9-18-15: The U.S. Mint has established that the 2015 John F. Kennedy Coin & Chronicles Set sold 45,613 out of its 50,000 production limit on the first day of sales (Wednesday, September 16).
UPDATE, 10-31-15: Kennedy Coin & Chronicles Sets are available again on the U.S. Mint’s online catalog. As of October 25, the Mint had sold 49,226 units out of a product limit of 50,000.
UPDATE, 11-2-15: As of Monday, November 2, the Kennedy Coin & Chronicle Set is once again listed as unavailable on the Mint’s website.
At the time of writing (1:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time), the United States Mint’s newly released John F. Kennedy Coin & Chronicles Set has NOT “sold out”.
But it is on back order.
At noon today, the Kennedy set became the third entry in the 2015 Coin & Chronicles series. Each entry features its respective Presidential $1 coin and includes a few pieces of Americana and presidential memorabilia: a postage stamp commemorating the set’s featured president, a .999 silver medal usually modeled after the featured president’s inaugural medal, and a booklet that briefly discusses the president’s biography and the history of his term in office.
By not becoming listed as “Unavailable” on the Mint’s website within the first 15 minutes of sales, the JFK Coin & Chronicles Set is bucking the trend–a trend most likely caused by the Reverse Proof Presidential dollars sold exclusively as the centerpieces of 2015’s Coin & Chronicles sets. The first set of the year–the Truman Coin & Chronicles Set–became unavailable by 12:15 p.m. on June 30. The second set–the Eisenhower Coin & Chronicles Set–became unavailable by at least 12:16 p.m. (if not earlier) on August 11.
One reason the hotly-anticipated set and its coveted reverse proof may not have became unavailable so quickly is the fact that the Mint had almost tripled the maximum mintage limit of the series for the Kennedy set–from 17,000 for Truman and Eisenhower to 50,000 for Kennedy. A household order limit of two sets is also in effect.
According to the U.S. Mint’s Kennedy set catalog page, new inventory is expected to be in stock Thursday, October 15. Orders that came in before the set officially went on “Back Order” should be fulfilled with current stock, while everyone who saw the back order statement in their shopping cart will receive theirs come mid-October at the earliest.
The fourth and final entry for 2015–the 2015 Lyndon B. Johnson Coin & Chronicles Set–will be available at noon EST on October 27. It, too, will contain a Reverse Proof Presidential $1 coin, and will have a mintage limit of 25,000.
As sales of the John F. Kennedy Coin & Chronicles Set continue, CoinWeek will update this page should the item sell out or become unavailable.
Here is hoping that the Government (US Mint) wakes up and limits the sale of hot coins to HSN and other venues. Let the faithful collectors, and mint subscribers get first dibbs, then open the flood gates to the big coin companies.